A blue and white bird feeder. Xuande Mark and period. Photo Sotheby's

the small bud-form vessel painted in a vivid tone of underglaze-blue with a continuous floral meander bearing four large blooms, all above a stylized lappet border, the reign mark Da Ming Xuande Nianzhi in a line below the neck, a lug handle for attachment now abraded  Diameter 3 in., 7.6 cm. Estimate 60,000-80,000 USD

NOTE: Birds have always been an important art motif in China, and the keeping of birds was a favorite past time of the educated classes. The present lot which is dated to the Xuande period of the Ming dynasty is painted with a typically Xuande floral design. Because of the pointed base, it would have to be fixed to the cage and filled with a funnel. Blue and white bird feeders with Xuande marks and of the period have been sold at at Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 11th May 1983, lot 96, of double-gourd form, and 8th April 2011, lot 3198, of drum-form. A Xuande mark and period bird feeder of globular form is illustrated in Imperial Porcelain of the Yongle and Xuande Periods Excavated from the Site of the Ming Imperial Factory at Jingdezhen, Hong Kong, 1989, cat. no. 48; and another with very similar floral decoration to the present lot, but a flat base, illustrated in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Selected Hsuan-te Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, Taipei, 1998, pp. 64-5, where it is noted that that particular bird feeder was formerly part of the Qing Imperial Collection, and that Xuande was known to keep birds.

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art. New York. 14 september 2011 www.sothebys.com