Lot 3171. A Famille-Verte bowl with mandarin ducks, Qing dynasty, Kangxi period (1662-1722);  17.1 cm., 6 3/4 in. Estimate 450,000-650,000 HKD (44,036 — 63,608 EUR). Lot sold 560,000 HKD (54,800 EUR). Photo Sotheby's

the rounded sides painted on the exterior in the famille-verte palette with a pair of mandarin ducks swimming in a pond with lotus and millet surrounded by five long-tailed birds perched on the rocks and millet stems, and a further pair in flight, all raised on a straight foot skirted by an iron-red scroll band, the interior and base undecorated. 

NOTE: A bowl of this pattern in the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, 1982, vol. 8, col. pl. 59, and others by John Ayers, Far Eastern Ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1980, cat. no. 203, and one in the Tokyo National Museum is illustrated in Masachiko Sato, Chinese Ceramics, New York and Tokyo, 1981, fig. 306. Compare also with a very similar bowl sold in our rooms 15th May 1990, lot 209.

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art. Hong Kong | 04 avr. 2012