Blue and White Kangxi Shipwreck Teapot

£ 495.00

An elegant ceramic teapot from the Kangxi period, displaying the characteristic blue and white glaze technique, complete with its original lid. The teapot features a bell-shaped lid, loop handle, and short spout, and features unfurling Chinese cabbage decoration to the belly and floral patterns to the lid. The designs are each finely rendered with precise cobalt brushstrokes, showcasing excellent craftsmanship, and highlighting the popular style of the Kangxi period. There is loss of the glossy top glaze of the vessel due to an extended period of submersion in the South China Sea, as the teapot was originally part of the cargo of a ship set to trade Chinese ceramics with the West that became wrecked in the Riau archipelago, Indonesia.

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The samples recovered from the Blue Chrysanthemum shipwreck are exclusively Ancient Chinese ceramics. The wares are predominately Kangxi Period blue and white porcelain, although multi-coloured ceramics and utilitarian wares are also in evidence in the cargo. The blue and white wares have been assessed to be excellent examples of early Chinese Kangxi blue and white porcelain, produced in the famous porcelain centre of Jingdezhen in the Jiangsu Province. Jingdezhen kilns made porcelain over two millennia, since the Han Dynasty period, reaching their technical excellence during the early Qing Dynasty. The very high quality cobalt blue colouring seen here is distinctive of the Kangxi Period porcelains, also referred to as ‘gem blue’ or ‘kingfisher blue’.

To discover more about Kangxi ceramics, please visit our relevant post: 10 Things You Need to Know About Kangxi Blue and White Ceramic.