Lot 11. A rare ruby-ground famille-rose bowl, Yongzheng mark and period (1723-1735). Diameter 5 in., 12.6 cm. Estimate 100,000-150,000 USD. Lot sold 254,500 USD. Photo Sotheby's

decorated in bright enamel colors with four detached yellow sprays of peony, interspersed with buds in pink, blue and purple, the petals all outlined in white, all borne on stems with leaves veined in black enamel on an even ruby-ground, the interior and base with a transparent glaze, six-character mark in underglaze blue within a double square. 

Property from the Estate of William and Jennifer Shaw.

Provenance: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 9th November 1982, lot 293.

Note: The colors employed on this bowl are typical of the early Yongzheng period porcelain produced in the Imperial Workshops at Jingdezhen. Hugh Moss suggests, in By Imperial Command. An Introduction to Ch'ing Imperial Painted Enamels, Hong Kong, 1976, p.82, that such bowls that heavily relied on the traditional famille-verte palette were probably produced in Jingdezhen following porcelains painted in the Palace Workshops in Beijing. Until the craftsmen in Jingdezhen became acquainted with the developments in famille-rose of the Palace Workshops in Beijing they continued to work in the dominant style of the Kangxi period. Dark-colored grounds adorned with vibrantly colored floral designs were favored for their dramatic demonstration of the new famille-rose enamels developed during theKangxi era. It was not until the early years of Yongzheng's reign that the exchange of ideas and techniques occurred, thus heralding the celebrated style and palette of enameled wares of his era.

The present bowl is unusual for both its composition and coloring of the two bands of peony blossoms. Two further bowls with this design are known, but painted alternately in tones of blue, pink and peach on a coral ground, one illustrated in Hugh Moss, By Imperial Command. An Introduction to Ch'ing Imperial Painted Enamels, Hong Kong, 1976, pl. 82, and sold in these rooms, 29th November 1978, lot 373, together with its companion bowl, lot 374. 

The color scheme and style of painting appears to have been based on smaller bowls of shallower form and lipped rim, similarly painted with three large peony blossoms in yellow and red against a rich coral ground, but with a fourcharacter Yongzheng yuzhi mark; see one in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in the museum's exhibition Painted Enamel of the Ch'ing Dynasty, Taipei, 1979, cat. no. 35; and two in the Chang Foundation, published in Selected Chinese Ceramics from Han to Qing Dynasties, Taipei, 1990, pl. 142. A bowl of this shallow type painted with related blue and white blossoms, in the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, is included in Chugoku toji zenshu, vol. 21, Kyoto, 1981, pl. 105. Moss discusses coral-ground bowls of this pattern with Yongzheng yuzhi marks and suggests that they were enameled at Jingdezhen, those painted in the famille-verte palette between 1722 and approximately 1725, and those with additional touches of rose enamel between 1722 and 1728.

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, New York, 11-12 september 2012