A powder-blue-ground 'floral' bowl. Mark and period of Yongzheng.  Photo Sotheby's

the deep rounded sides rising to a flared mallow-lobed rim, the exterior divided into six sections by spiralling petals radiating out from the base, each enclosing white chrysanthemum sprays with detailing picked out in white slip, above a double petal border reserved in white, all set against a speckled cobalt-blue glaze, the interior left white and lightly carved with six spiralling petals corresponding to the exterior, the white base inscribed with a six-character reign mark in underglaze blue within double circles; 19.2 cm., 7 1/2 in. Estimate  200,000-300,000 HKD. Lot 46 vendu: 1,640,000 HKD

EXHIBITED: Evolution to Perfection. Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection/ Evolution vers la perfection. Céramiques de Chine de la Collection Meiyintang, Sporting d'Hiver, Monte Carlo, 1996, cat. no. 141.

LITTERATURE: Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 2, no. 842.

NOTE: Like the blue-and-yellow dish, lot 48, and the blue-and-white companion dish, formerly also in the Meiyintang collection, illustrated in Krahl, op. cit., vol. 4, no. 843, and sold in these rooms, 7th April 2011, lot 75, this bowl is designed in the rarely used technique of blowing a cobalt-blue glaze through a gauze-covered tube onto a porcelain surface applied with stencils to create a white reserve design. Another bowl of this pattern in the Tsui Museum of Art, is illustrated in Xu Shi Yishuguan / The Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1991, pl. 93

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection, Part III - An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains, Hong Kong | 04 avr. 2012www.sothebys.com