Lot 6. A fine pair of doucai 'ball-flower' bowls, Marks and period of Yongzheng (1723-1735); 10.2 cm., 4 in. Estimate 5,000,000—7,000,000 HKD. Lot Sold 11,300,000 HKD (1,453,632 USD) to an Anonymous.  Photo Sotheby's 2011

each finely potted with conical sides slightly flaring at the rim all rising from a straight foot, the outside decorated with an asymmetric design of roundels of different sizes and with different geometric patterns, some freely floating, some overlapping, drawn in deep underglaze-blue outlines and coloured in different tones of cobalt-blue, and green, red, yellow and pale pinkish-aubergine enamels, the interior undecorated, the six-character mark within a double square in underglaze blue

Provenance: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 2nd May 2000, lot 676.

Literature: Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4, no. 1750.

Note: This unusual, colourful design, which is unique in its severe abstraction, would seem to be inspired by the Japanese heraldic family symbols, mon. The Yongzheng Emperor is known to have been greatly interested in Japanese works of art and to have commissioned reproductions, in particular of Japanese lacquer ware. The design is popularly known as 'ball flower' pattern in the West, although it is clearly not a flower pattern but in fact one of the rare designs not based on nature.

A single bowl of this design from the Nanjing Museum was included in the exhibition Qing Imperial Porcelain of the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong Reigns, Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1995, cat. no. 55; another in the Chang Foundation, Taipei, published in James Spencer, ed., Selected Chinese Ceramics from Han to Qing Dynasties, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1990, pl. 136, was sold in these rooms, 2nd May 2005, lot 501, and probably also in our New York rooms 4th June 1982, lot 269.

The same design appears also on an unmarked jar in the Palace Museum Beijing, illustrated in Zhongguo taoci quanji [Complete series on Chinese ceramics], Shanghai, 1999-2000, vol. 14, pl. 184; and a similar design was in the Yongzheng period also executed in fencai (famille rose) enamels on a bowl of more rounded shape, inscribed with a reign mark in a double circle; see a piece in Taipei in the Illustrated Catalogue of Ch'ing Dynasty Porcelain in the National Palace Museum, Republic of China. K'ang-hsi Ware and Yung-cheng Ware, Tokyo, 1980, pl. 100.

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