There's a particular grey cast to this blue that gives it away before anything else does. Chinese cobalt of this era tends toward a cleaner, more saturated blue, while Vietnamese kilns working with local cobalt sources produced this softer, smokier tone, and it's all over this little pear-shaped bottle, in loosely painted florals, a scrolling cloud motif at the shoulder, a small roundel below the neck. Turn it over and the story confirms itself, an unglazed footring in warm reddish stoneware, fired unevenly the way hand-thrown fifteenth and sixteenth century Vietnamese export ware typically was. Pieces like this one were made in huge quantities for Southeast Asian trade, and a significant number of the surviving examples in today's market come from documented shipwreck hoards, most famously the Hoi An hoard recovered off the Vietnamese coast in the 1990s, though we can't confirm this particular piece's exact origin without provenance. What survives is a small, unpretentious vessel with real age in its glaze and real history in its form. Let it stand alone on a shelf where the crackled glaze and that grey-blue painting can be seen up close, it's a piece that rewards a second look far more than a first.
*Era: Antique
*Origin: Vietnam (Annamese tradition, Hoi An hoard style)
*Material: Glazed stoneware, cobalt underglaze decoration
*Size: 5” dm x 8.5”H
*Color: White/grey ground with grey-blue underglaze floral and scroll decoration, unglazed reddish footring
*Condition: Wear consistent with age & use, blemishes and imperfections will be present. These are not to be considered defects but rather part of its character & historical value. Surface crazing throughout consistent with age; footring shows expected firing irregularities.
A small pear-shaped bottle vase in the Vietnamese Annamese blue-and-white tradition, decorated with grey-toned cobalt floral and scroll motifs and finished with an unglazed reddish stoneware footring, characteristics consistent with 15th-16th century Hoi An hoard-era trade ceramics.
Q&A:
Is this from the actual Hoi An shipwreck hoard? We can't confirm that without documented provenance, but the glaze color, painting style, and unglazed footring are all textbook characteristics of that same Vietnamese Annamese tradition and era, so it's presented honestly as being in that tradition and style rather than a verified hoard piece.
Why does the blue look grey rather than bright cobalt? Vietnamese kilns of this period worked with local cobalt sources that fired to a softer, smokier grey-blue, distinct from the more saturated blue typical of Chinese Jingdezhen porcelain of the same era. It's one of the clearest visual markers of Vietnamese versus Chinese blue-and-white ware.
• **Please bear in mind that colors of products shown may vary slightly from their original color due to monitor display settings or photography studio.
