A LARGE BLUE AND WHITE SIX-TUBE ARROW VASE, TOUHU, MING DYNASTY

Expert’s note:
The six small and rather unusual lion heads applied on the shoulder of the present vase once suspended bronze rings, which have long been lost to time. It is possible that these rings were used to keep score when playing touhu with this vase, since there is exactly one lion head for each of the six arrow tubes.

China, 16th to early 17th century. The pear-shaped body supported on a waisted foot and rising to a slender neck, the mouth applied with six tubular arrow holes, the shoulder with six pierced lion heads. Finely decorated to the exterior in shades of cobalt blue with scholarly figures and their attendants inside a fenced garden with large willows, below a band of ruyi heads at the shoulder. The neck with three magpies on a prunus branch and a large pine tree, the mouth and arrow lugs with floral designs, the foot with a band of lotus petals.


Provenance:
From a private collection in Paris, France.

Condition:
Expected old wear and firing irregularities, including burst bubbles, black spots, firing cracks, glaze recesses, and kiln grit. The neck with a horizontal luting line showing an old fill, visible also on the inside, and associated glaze lines. Minor smoothened chips to the foot and occasional light scratches.

Weight: 3,136 g
Dimensions: Height 38.3 cm


Arrow vases
were made for a drinking game called ‘touhu’ (lit. ‘pitch-pot’), which had been popular among elite men and women from the Spring and Autumn period of the Eastern Zhou dynasty. The Ming-dynasty Emperor Xuande was known to be quite fond of the game, as evidenced by a painting of him playing touhu by Shan Xi (in the Palace Museum, Beijing). Players threw arrows into bronze or ceramic vases with narrow tubular necks at prescribed intervals, each player equidistant from the vase. The winner successfully projected all his arrows into the vase and the loser was forced to drink at each miss. Elaborate rituals and intricate rules, recorded in the Li Ji (Book of Rites), added further complexity to the game. Puzzling pitching techniques were described in the Touhu Yijie (Ceremonial Usages and Rules of Touhu), an illustrated manual written by Wang Ti (1490-1530), and these shots were given fancy names, like ‘A Pair of Dragons Enters the Sea’ when two arrows were thrown from a great height at once into the vase. The touhu game was used to practice archery, one of the essential accomplishments of a gentleman. Later in the Ming era, the game became more widespread, being played by rich merchants as well as the aristocracy and scholarly elite. A scene in the famous late Ming novel Jin Ping Mei (Plum Blossom in the Golden Vase), written in 1619, describes the wealthy merchant Ximen Qing's seduction of his concubine Panjinlian. She becomes inebriated while playing touhu on a picnic and the game leads to an amorous encounter. For a further discussion of the game see Isabelle Lee, Touhu: Three Millennia of the Chinese Arrow Vase and the Game of Pitch-pot, Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 56, 1991-2, pp. 13-7.


Literature comparison:

Compare a related Cizhou painted arrow vase, 40 cm high, dated to the Ming dynasty, circa 1522-1566, in the collection of the British Museum, museum number 1937,0716.74.


Auction result comparison:

Type: Related
Auction: Galerie Zacke, Vienna, 29 September 2022, lot 106
Price: EUR 26,000 or approx.
EUR 27,500
converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A very large and extremely rare Cizhou painted arrow vase, touhu, Ming dynasty
Expert remark: Compare the related form, albeit with fewer and larger arrow holes and lacking the animal masks, and similar size (40 cm).




明代青花投壺式瓶


中國，十六世紀至十七世紀初。胎體緊密，細長頸，豐腹下垂，圈足口，部有六個管狀箭孔，肩部一周有六個獅頭。外壁裝飾精美，青花描繪園中文人雅集；頸部修飾花鳥紋；足飾蓮瓣紋。


來源：
法國巴黎私人收藏。

品相：
有磨損，破裂的氣泡、黑點、燒製裂紋、釉面凹陷和窯砂。頸部有一條水平的釉線，顯示出填充物，在內部也可見釉線。腳部有輕微的平滑缺口和輕微劃痕。

重量：3,136 克
尺寸：高 38.3 厘米


投壺
最早應是東週與春秋左近出現，源流本為“射禮”。最早投壺不是遊戲，而是諸侯國間的國家禮儀。投壺成為遊戲，是戰國後期才開始的。此等遊戲，在皇家燕宴，士大夫、文人們宴飲或雅集之際，必得以“雅歌”伴“投壺”助興。其投壺技巧百出，有背向反投者，遮目盲投者，隔了屏風越投者，或各種舞蹈技藝投壺者等等，不一而足。


《禮記》中記錄的精心製定的儀式和復雜的規則
。明代投壺，又有新的發展，投擲技法百有四十，這在《投壺奏矢》一書中有載。1619年著名的《金瓶梅》書中，就描寫了西門慶勾引潘金蓮的場景，其中就有投壺的遊戲。有關投壺遊戲的進一步討論，請參見 Isabelle Lee，《Touhu：Three Millennia of the Chinese Arrow Vase and the Game of Pitch-pot'，Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society》，卷56，1991年第2冊，頁13-7。


文獻比較:

比較一件相近的約1522-1566年明代磁州投壺，高40 厘米， 收藏於大英博物館，館藏編號1937,0716.74。


拍賣比較：

形制：相近
拍賣：Galerie Zacke，維也納，2022年9月29日，lot 106
價格：EUR 26,000（相當今日
EUR 27,500
）
描述：明代罕見磁州窯彩繪投壺
專家註釋：比較相近的外形，儘管箭孔較少，而且沒有獅頭，以及相似的尺寸 (40 厘米)。