Lot 9. The Au Bak Ling Collection. A rare famille verte 'mandarin ducks and lotus pond' bowl, Kangxi period (1662-1722); 17.5 cm diam. Price realised HKD 2,772,000 (Estimate HKD 800,000-1,200,000). © Christie's Images Ltd 2024.

The bowl is potted with deep rounded sides, finely decorated on the exterior with a continuous scene of two mandarin ducks swimming in a pond amidst lotus and reeds, below other smaller birds, the foot encircled by an iron-red scroll.

Provenance: T.Y. King, Hong Kong
Bluett & Sons, London, acquired in 1966
Derek Ide, London, acquired in 1966
Bluett & Sons, London
F.W.A. (Fredrick) Knight, acquired in 1970
Bluett & Sons, London
Hugh Moss, acquired in 1976.

Note: Mandarin ducks within a lotus pond has been a popular decorative motif since the Song Dynasty, and been widely used throughout Yuan to Qing dynasties because of its auspicious meaning. The decoration on the current bowl is extremely fine and painterly, reminiscent of Song dynasty bird and flower paintings, such as the album leaf painting by Hui Chong, ‘Pair of Mandarin Ducks on an Autumn Bank’, see Illustrated Catalog of Painting and Calligraphy in the National Palace Museum, vol.28, Taipei, 1998, pp. 372-377.

Compare to a closely related example from the H.B. Harris Bequest, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, illustrated by Rose Kerr in Chinese Ceramics: Porcelain of the Qing Dynasty 1644-1911, London, 1986, p.15; one of similar pattern design in the Shanghai Museum Collection, but with an apocryphal Chenghua Mark, illustrated in Kangxi Porcelain Wares from the Shanghai Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1998, no. 102; and a further example sold at Marchant-Fifty Qing Imperial Porcelains, Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 10 July 2020, lot 3133.

Christie's. The Au Bak Ling Collection: The Inaugural Sale, Hong Kong, 26 September 2024