Lot 4. A fine and rare pair of coral-ground famille-verte bowls, Yu Zhi marks and period of Kangxi (1662-1722); 10.9 cm., 4 1/4 in. Estimate 8,000,000—12,000,000 HKD. Lot Sold 14,100,000 HKD (1,813,824 USD) to an Asian Private. Photo Sotheby's 2013

each bowl of deep rounded form rising from a slightly splayed foot towards a flared rim, painted on the outside with a dense pattern of different flowers growing in lush profusion, with large blooms in blue, pale aubergine, pale yellow and iron-red enamels clustered around the foot and more delicate flowering stems of many different varieties rising towards the rim, the leaves in different tones of green, mostly drawn in fine black outlines and details, all against an intense, deep iron-red ground also covering the foot, the interior of each bowl plain.

Provenance: Wah Kwong Collection, Hong Kong.
Collection of T.Y. Chao, Hong Kong.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 19th May 1987, lot 303.
Christie's Hong Kong, 20th March 1990, lot 566.
Christie's Hong Kong, 30th May 2006, lot 1258.

Exhibited: Ch'ing Porcelain from the Wah Kwong Collection, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1973-4, cat. no. 108 (one bowl illustrated).
Ming and Ch'ing Porcelain from the T.Y. Chao Family Foundation, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1978, cat. no. 71 (one bowl illustrated).

Literature: Geng Baochang, Ming Qing ciqi jianding [Appraisal of Ming and Qing porcelain], Hong Kong, 1993, p. 216, pl. 379 (one bowl).
Sotheby's Hong Kong – Twenty Years, Hong Kong, 1993, pl. 217.
Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4, no. 1724.

Note: Reign marks with the wording yu zhi [made for imperial use of ...] following the reign name, rather than nian zhi [made in the years of ...] are extremely rare and suggest a closer relationship to the imperial court. Wares enamelled in the imperial workshops in the Forbidden City of Beijing rather than by the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen in Jiangxi bear such yu zhi marks, but in overglaze blue or pink enamel, since the plain white porcelains came from Jingdezhen fully glazed and fired. The significance of the underglaze-blue yu zhi mark, which would have been added at Jingdezhen, has been much discussed, especially since identical bowls are also known with underglaze-blue nian zhi marks.

It has been suggested that such bowls were enamelled in the palace at Beijing, with only the mark inscribed at Jingdezhen before firing. They seem, however, very different from the typical Kangxi porcelains from the Beijing palace workshops, and are part of a small but well-known range of pieces with the same design painted in the characteristic Jingdezhen wucai ('five colour') palette of the Kangxi period, which in the West is known as the famille verte. It is therefore most likely that they were decorated in Jingdezhen, even if their marks may indicate direct use at the palace. This design continued to be popular throughout the Qing dynasty, and similar bowls are known with Yongzheng (1723-35), Qianlong (1736-95) and Daoguang (1821-50) reign marks.

Another bowl of this shape, design and reign mark in the Shanghai Museum is published in Wang Qingzheng, ed., Kangxi Porcelain Wares from the Shanghai Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1998, pl. 95; one in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is illustrated in He Li, Chinese Ceramics. A New Standard Guide, London, 1996, pl. 653; and a pair from the collection of Edward T. Chow and now in the S.C. Ko Tianminlou collection was included in the exhibition Chinese Porcelain. The S.C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1987, cat. no. 89, and sold in these rooms, 25th November 1980, lot 143. Similar bowls with Yongzheng yu zhi, Yongzheng nian zhi as well as six-character Yongzheng and Qianlong reign marks are illustrated in The Tsui Museum of Art. Chinese Ceramics IV: Qing Dynasty, Hong Kong, 1995, pls 158-60 and 166, together with an unusual example with a Kangxi yu zhi mark in pink enamel, pl. 123. A Daoguang example is illustrated together with another with Yongzheng yu zhi mark in Soame Jenyns, Later Chinese Porcelain. The Ch'ing Dynasty (1644-1912), London, 1951, pl. XLV.

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection - An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains, 07 Apr 11, Hong Kong