Auction Information

Description

The bottle has a round mouth with a slightly outward edge, a long neck that gradually widens from top to bottom, a flat and round belly, and an oval shallow circular foot. The whole body is decorated with blue and white, and the bottle mouth and neck are painted with rolled grass patterns and tangled lotus patterns for one circle each. The abdomen is adorned with blue and white sea dragon patterns, and a agile and majestic white dragon swims in the vast and boundless sea. The white dragon turns its head and curves, with its hair fluttering and limbs stretched out, ready to emerge. The blue and white waves rolled up and down, surging and surging, with black spots visible. There was a feeling of overwhelming sky and earth, splashing with water droplets, and coming head-on. Especially with blue and white dots on the dragon's eyes, it becomes more and more impressive. During the Xuande period, there was a saying that "all materials are well prepared, and blue and white are precious.". The decoration process of this bottle involves first using pointed tools to outline the dragon pattern on the porcelain body, as well as the details of the dragon's eyes, crown hair, thick lips, teeth, claws, scales, etc. Then, using blue and white materials to fully paint the rough sea water around the dragon body and applying transparent glaze, and firing it at high temperature in the kiln. According to historical records, during the Xuande period, the blue and white porcelain was mostly made of "Su Ni Bo Qing" cobalt material brought back by Zheng He from the West, which was deep, bright, and bright, like sapphire. There was often a halo phenomenon between the lines, like the ink halo in ink painting, combined with scattered black spots, creating an extraordinary artistic effect on the painting. In the tenth year of the Xianfeng reign (1860), the British and French coalition forces invaded Beijing and burned the world-renowned Garden of Ten Thousand Gardens - the Old Summer Palace. In the first large imperial garden built by Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty for himself in the west of Beijing, countless artistic treasures of the 5000 year Chinese civilization were also swept away by the British and French coalition forces. However, this record of the Ming Dynasty national treasure blue and white has been fortunately preserved. It turned out that it was brought back to France by a French officer named Meng Douban, It was well preserved until the end of 2007, during the global financial crisis, when Mr. Zhou, a patriotic overseas Chinese who had been doing business in France for many years, learned about it. He invited several famous domestic and foreign porcelain appraisers to conduct appraisal and then purchased this national treasure from the descendants of Meng Douban for a high price of 3.8 million pounds, in order to prevent the loss of Chinese national treasure overseas. During this period, Christie's in the UK learned about this national treasure blue and white, and has been persuading Mr. Zhou to auction it in the UK, Mr. Zhou has always insisted on the return of this national treasure to the motherland. After more than ten door-to-door petitions from Jiangsu Wanda International Auction Co., Ltd., Mr. Zhou was finally sincerely moved and decided to unveil the mysterious veil of this national treasure again at the spring auction of Jiangsu Wanda International Auction Co., Ltd.