An outstanding Junyao bubble bowl. Northern Song-Jin dynasty. Photo Bonhams

Very finely potted with gently rounded sides, curving up from a short straight foot to a slightly inverted rim, covered overall in a thick and creamy lavender blue glaze, thinning to an olive and greyish hue towards the extremities, the soft texture contrast with a brilliantly-splashed purplish-pink swirl at the interior, the exterior with another two finely-splashed running down from the rim in evenly striking colours, all beneath a smooth-to-touch surface, leaving a neatly cut ungalzed footring of dark brown and greyish tone, Japanese box. 8.1cm diam. (2). Lot 255. Sold for HK$ 1.3 million

北宋 / 金 鈞窯天藍釉紫斑小盌

Notable for its uniquely small sized, which led to the common reference of 'bubble' bowl, these bowls were probably more used for drinking wine or tea. Whilst most earlier Junyao relied on chaste monochrome glazes as their sole decoration, later examples have light crimson flushes or, as demonstrated by the current lot, with increased bold prominent splashes of purple, acheived by the deliberate addition of copper.

A slightly larger example of a Junyao bubble bowl is in the Sir Percival David collection, illustrated in S. Pierson, Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art. A Guide to the Collection, London, 2002, p.39, no.15. See also another bubble bowl in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, illustrated by S.G. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1975, p.73, no.41. For another pair of Junyao bubble bowls in the Laiyantang collection, see 50 Song Ceramics from the Laiyantang Collection, 2009, pp.50-51, no.16.

Bonhams. 27 May 2012 2 p.m. Hong Kong. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art