Lot 262. A Peachbloom-Glazed Brushwasher, Kangxi Mark and Period (1662-1722); 12cm., 4 3/4 in. Estimate 30,000 — 50,000 GBP. Lot sold 103,250 GBP. Photo Sotheby's

delicately potted of compressed circular form, supported on a shallow tapering foot, the incurved, rounded sides covered with a fine strawberry-pink glaze mottled with copper-red flecks, the interior and base left white, inscribed with a six-character Kangxi mark.

Provenance: Duveen, New York (by repute).
Collection of Emily Norwood Trevor, New York.
Marchant, London.

Note: The present washer is especially attractive for the light colouration of the peachbloom glaze and for its elegant circular form that represents one of the better known shapes among the group of eight peachbloom wares made for the scholar’s desk.  A complete group of the eight peachbloom wares, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is illustrated in Suzanne G. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989, p. 237; and another set of seven was included in the exhibition Chinese Porcelain from the 15th to the 18th Century, Eskenazi, London, 2006, cat. no.s. 4-10, where on p. 40, related washers are mentioned in the collection of the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, in the Baur collection, Geneva,  and in the Meiyintang collection.

Further examples of peachbloom washers of this type, known in Chinese as tangle xi, have been sold at auction; one was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 8th April 2009, lot 1657, from the collection of Edward Chow; another from the Jingguantang collection was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 3rd November 1996, lot 557; and two washers from the Herschel V. Johnson collection were sold in these rooms, 21stFebruary 1967, lot 85 and 88.

Compare also a washer from the collection of H.M. Knight and included in the exhibition 4000 Jaar Aziatische Kunst, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1954, cat. no. 300, sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 19th May 1982, lot 263; and another from the collection of Mrs. Enid Lodge and of the late F. Brodie Lodge, sold in these rooms, 10th December 1968, lot 127, and again, in our Hong Kong rooms, 19th May 1982, lot 264.

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, London, 07 november 2012