Lot 105. The Leshantang Collection. A pair of lemon-yellow enamelled bowls, Marks and period of Yongzheng (1723-1735), 9,9 cm. Lot Sold 1,778,000 HKD (Estimate 400,000 - 600,000 HKD). © Sotheby's 2024

each delicately potted with rounded sides rising from a short foot, the exterior enamelled in lemon-yellow, the base inscribed with a six-character reign mark within a double circle in underglaze-blue.

Provenance: An important European private collection, acquired from Edward T. Chow (1910-80) in the late 1960s.

Sotheby's Hong Kong, 4th November 1997, lot 1375.

Literature: The Leshantang Collection, Taipei, 2005, pl. 38.

Exhibited: Chinese Art from the Ching Wan Society Collections, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1998, cat. no. 44.

Note: Deceptively simple in form and colour, lemon-yellow enamelled vessels represent one of the most technically challenging porcelains to be produced. Monochrome wares of this type required absolute precision in potting, glazing and firing, as the smallest imperfection resulted in the destruction of the piece. Amongst all the different monochrome hues, yellow is the only colour with a direct imperial association. Although imperial yellow-glazed wares had been produced from the early Ming dynasty, they were used exclusively for ritual ceremonies; thus lemon-yellow vessels provided the court with an alternative for daily use. The yellow enamel was derived from an antimoniate oxide, and the lemon yellow was a Yongzheng innovation achieved when the antimoniate of iron was combined with tin oxide, resulting in an opaque yellow of brilliant hue.

Compare a pair of closely related bowls, from the collection of Mr and Mrs Eli Lilly, sold in our New York rooms, 3rd June 1993, lot 334; another pair from the Edward T. Chow collection, sold in these rooms, 25th November 1980, lot 101; a third, from the collection of W.F. van Heukelom, sold in our London rooms, 5th November 2014, lot 51; and another bowl, included in the Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Ceramics from the Collection of the Kau Chi Society of Chinese Art, Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1981, cat. no. 138, and sold in our London rooms, 6th November 2019, lot 15.

Sotheby's. The Leshantang Collection (II) – Treasures of Chinese Art from the Tsai I-Ming Collection, Hong Kong, 9 April 2024.