A rare blue and white moon flask. Yongzhen six-character seal mark in underglaze blue and of the period  (1723-1735)

The convex sides well painted in early Ming style with simulated 'heaped and piled' effect with three fruiting and flowering branches including pomegranate and peach, each branch issuing from a sprig of lingzhi fungus, within a narrow border of classic scroll, with bands of composite floral scroll on the narrow sides below the pair of leaf-scroll handles that flank two flower sprays on the neck below a band of key fret set between two raised borders, the whole raised on a rounded rectangular foot encircled by lingzhi meander
13¼ in. (33.7 cm.) high  Estimate: $300,000-400,000

Provenance : Sotheby's, New York, 28-30 November 1992, lot 340.

Notes : A blue and white moon flask of this rare pattern, also with Yongzheng mark, was included in the exhibition, Chinese Art from the Newark Museum, China Institute, New York, 1980, no. 36. Another was sold by Sotheby's, London, 13 June 1989, lot 256. See, also, a flask of this shape in the Palace Museum, Beijing, painted with the same decoration, but with the fruit and flowers in copper red, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures in the Palace Museum - 36 - Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red (III), Hong Kong, 2000, p. 218, no. 199.

Christies. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art. 17 September 2008. New York, Rockefeller Plaza. www.christies.com