Lot 13. A fine pair of famille-rose floral bowls, Marks and period of Yongzheng (1736-1795); 17.9 cm., 7 in. Estimate 2,700,000 - 4,500,000 HKD (266,583 — 444,306 EUR). Lot sold 6,040,000 HKD (596,357 EUR). Courtesy Sotheby's 2013

each finely potted with deep rounded sides rising from a straight foot to a flared rim, painted on the interior with a pale-green orchid bloom and two loose petals, naturalistically placed as if they had fallen into the bowl, the exterior decorated with a large peony with lush pink, white and pale green petals, flanked by two pink roses and two buds on a long thorny stalk, and blue-petalled asters growing by a decorative garden rock, the reverse with two hovering multi-coloured butterflies accompanied on one bowl by a single bee, the base inscribed in underglaze blue with a six-character reign mark written in three lines within a double ring.

Literature: Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 2, no. 964.

Note: These bowls belong to a distinctive group of Yongzheng famille-rose porcelains painted with floral motifs, often with prominent use of blue enamel, and with the mark written in three vertical columns. Two other bowls of this design have been sold in these rooms, 11th April 2008, lots 2901 and 2902. A famille-rose dish with a similar mark in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is published in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Porcelains with Cloisonne Enamel Decoration and Famille Rose Decoration, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 61.

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection, Part V - An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains, Hong Kong, 08 avr. 2013