Sotheby's London, 4th November 2009, lot 243.

Chriꦏstie's Hong Kong, 30th May 2018, lot 3109.

倫敦蘇富比2009年11月4日，編號243

香港佳士得2018年5月30日，編號3109

He Chaozong, the Dehua kilns' most famous potter and greatest figure sculptor, lived and worked in the late Ming period, around the la𓃲te 16th and early 17th centuries. His figures are characterised by remarkable sculptural quality, with the most delicate facial features and bold garment folds. He is mainly known through his extant work, which oft𒆙en bears his seals, but very little is recorded about the man himself. His works defined the characteristic Dehua style, and his images, which have provided models for porcelain sculpture until today, established a standard that has never since been reached again.

The present figure is a particularly large and finely modelled example of a well-known group of sculptures depicting the God of Literature, designed by He. A similar figure with a square He Chaozong mark, from the Koger collection in the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Florida, was included in the exhibition Blanc de Chine. Divine Images in Porcelain, China Institute Gallery, New York, 2002, cat. no. 40, and is also illustrated in Rose Kerr and John Ayers, Blanc de Chine. Porcelain from Dehua, Chicago, 2002, p. 32, fig. 21, together with a smaller figure from the Hickley collection, with a sceptre in the right hand, cat. no. 27; another smaller figure is compared with a slightly earlier model cast in bronze in Robert H. Blumenfield, Blanc de Chine. The Great Porcelain of Dehua, Berkeley and Toronto, 2002, p. 105; a further example with a sceptre, illustrated in P.J. Donnelly, Blanc De Chine: The Porcelain of Tehua in Fukien, New York and Washington, 1969, p. 145D, was sold twice in our London rooms, 19th July 1955, lot 90, and 14th April 1970, lot 145, and again Christie's New York, 17th September 2010, lot 1389; another figure with a sceptre in the Meiyintang collection is included in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 2, no. 1004.

See a figure of Caishen, the God of Wealth, also impressed with a square mark of He but with a coin in one hand, in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, accession no. 922.20.124.

何朝宗，活躍於晚明十六世紀末至十七世紀初，乃德化窰最有名的陶匠，擅人物塑像，其工藝超卓，衣紋粗獷飄逸，眉目精緻細膩，毫髮畢現。作品甚豐，多有其印，惟其人生平不꧋詳。何朝宗之技，空前絕後，奠定了德化瓷藝風格，他的作品，時至今日，仍用作瓷質塑像的底本。

文昌塑像，形由何朝宗始創，其外型碩大，巧奪天工。佛羅里ജ達州約翰與梅波潤格林藝術博物館藏品中，有一相類塑像，鈐何氏方印，展於《Blanc de Chine. Divine Images in Porcelain》，China Institute Gallery，紐約，2002年，編號40，也載於柯玫瑰及約翰．艾爾斯，《Blanc de Chine. Porcelain from Dehua》，芝加哥，2002年，頁32，圖 21，同書刊一相關德化塑像，其右手執如意，體型略小，屬 Hickley 藏品，見編號27；也可參看一體型較小的塑像，錄於 Robert H. Blumenfield，《Blanc de Chine. The Great Porcelain of Dehua》，柏克萊及多倫多，2002年，頁105，書中把其與較早期青銅像並列對比；另見一手持如意例，錄入 P.J. Donnelly，《Blanc De Chine: The Porcelain of Tehua in Fukien》，紐約及華盛頓，1969年，頁145D，兩度售於倫敦蘇富比，1955年7月19日，編號90，以及14th April 1970年4月14日，編號145，後復現拍場，2010年9月17日在紐約佳士得易手，編號1389；玫茵堂且有一例，見康蕊君，《玫茵堂中國陶瓷》，倫敦，1994-2010年，卷2，編號1004。

多倫多皇家安大略博物館藏「何朝宗印」財神坐像（藏品編號922.20.124），手拈錢幣，可資比對。