Lot 75. A 'Ding' bowl, Northern Song dynasty. Diameter 9 1/8  in., 23.1 cm. Estimate 250,000 — 350,000 USD. Lot sold 545,000 USD. Photo Sotheby's

the finely potted body with gently rounded conical sides rising from a short foot to an everted metal-bound rim, the interior freely carved with a single lotus flower with curling leaves, applied overall with an even ivory-colored glaze pooling in characteristic tear-drops on the plain exterior. 

PROVENANCE: Mayuyama & Co., Ltd., Tokyo, acquired before 1970s.

LITTERATURE: Mayuyama, Seventy Years, Volume One, Mayuyama & Co., Ltd., Tokyo, 1976, p. 128, no. 374.

NOTE: This elegant bowl is representative of a classic Ding design of the Northern Song dynasty and is notable for its large size. Celebrated for thin potting, a fine near-white body and an ivory-colored glaze which tends to run down in slightly darker 'tears', Ding wares were ranked among the 'five great wares' of the Song, a term coined by the collectors of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Ding designs generally display a high level of naturalness and fluidity and the maker of this bowl has skillfully rendered the lotus in spontaneous flowing lines to successfully capture the spirit and grace of the flower. Symbolic of purity and integrity because it rises clean out of muddy water, the lotus was a popular motif throughout the Song dynasty and frequently featured on white-glazed Ding ware.

Bowls of this type, but of slightly smaller size, include one from the Qing Court collection, and still in Beijing, published in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Porcelain of the Song Dynasty (I), Hong Kong, 1996, pl. 52; one in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in the Special Exhibition of Ting White Ware White Porcelain, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1987, cat. no. 36; another from the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, included in the exhibition White Porcelain of Ding Yao, Nezu Institute of Fine Arts, Tokyo, 1983, cat. no. 117; a bowl from the Eumorfopoulos collection, illustrated in R.L. Hobson, The George Eumorfopoulos Collection, vol. 3, London, 1926, pl. XXIX; and a fifth example from the collection of Mrs Alfred Clark, included in the Oriental Ceramic Society exhibition Arts of the Sung Dynasty, London, 1960, cat. no. 19, and sold in our London rooms, 25th March 1975, lot  35.

Bowls of this type but with lobed rims are also known; for example see one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Selection of Ding Ware. The Palace Museum's Collection and Archaeological Excavation, Beijing, 2012, pl. 64; and a slightly larger bowl sold in our London rooms, 16th May 2012, lot 88.

The kiln site identified with Ding ware is located at Quyang in Ding county, Hebei province. This was an area formerly known as Dingzhou. Ding production consisted mostly of small utilitarian wares such as dishes and bowls, generally left in their natural form and undecorated in the 10th and early 11th centuries. From the late 11th century and early 12th century an increasing number were carved or incised and through the thirteenth century they were moldimpressed and densely patterned. Rose Kerr in her work on the collection of Song ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, states that the 'fact that Ding ware was an official ware made one feature of its decoration especially pronounced.' This was its tendency to mimic other, more precious, materials such as gold and silver, huge quantities of which were stored in palace treasures (see Rose Kerr, Song Ceramics, London, 1982, p. 102, for further information).