A fine and rare blue and white Ming style barrel-form vase, Qianlong seal mark and period. Photo Sotheby's.

of ovoid form, well-painted in varying tones of underglaze blue in classic 'heaping and piling' style with a central band of six stylized lotus and chrysanthemum flowerheads on a continuous lingzhi scrolling foliate branch, between ruyi-head bands and beneath a narrow border of cresting waves under the rim, the base with a six-character seal mark in underglaze blue. Height 7 3/4 in., 19.7 cm. Estimation 120,000 — 150,000 USD

Provenance: Sotheby's Amsterdam, 12th May 1998, lot 314.
Berwald Oriental Art, London, 23rd March 2000.

Very few examples of this design have appeared on the market. An identical piece was offered by S. Marchant & Son in their catalogue Recent Acquisitions, 2007, no. 14, pp. 30-31; more recently an example from a Japanese collection was sold by Christie's Hong Kong, 30th May 2012, lot 3998.

A slightly larger (10 in. high) barrel-form seat with bosses, decorated in underglaze blue and white in a similar pattern is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and illustrated in Cornelius Osgood, Blue and White Chinese Porcelain, A Study of Form, New York, 1956, no. 56. This form is more frequently seen in monochromes with bosses and stylized handles. A pair of celadon-glazed Qianlong jars of this form was included in the exhibition Chinese Celadons and Other Related Wares in Southeast Asia, Singapore, 1979, pl. 224, nos. 271-272; and another single jar was included in the exhibition Chi'ng Porcelain from the Wah Kwong Collection, Hong Kong, 1974, no. 18, A single jar from the Edward T. Chow collection was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 25th November 1987, lot 118.

Sotheby's. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS & WORKS OF ART. 18 MARS 2014 - 19 MARS 2014. NEW YORK -www.sothebys.com