Lot 3111. A fine doucai 'Sanduo' bowl, Mark and period of Yongzheng (1723-1735); 16 cm., 6 1/4 in. Estimate 800,000 — 1,000,000 HKD. Lot sold 1,960,000 HKD (365,271 EUR). Photo Sotheby's

the deep rounded sides rising from a straight foot to an everted rim, delicately painted in the doucai palette on the exterior with three fruiting branches, one bearing yellow finger-citrons, another with three pale pink pomegranates, and the third with five lychees, two orange ones lightening towards the tip, the remaining three decorated in pale yellow, blue and beige respectively, the interior similarly painted with a medallion enclosing a spray of peaches transmuting from a yellowish-green to orange tone at the tip, further leaves and flowers stemming from the spray, the base inscribed in underglaze blue with a six-character reign mark within double circles.

Provenance: An old Japanese collection since the 1960s.

Exhibited: Chūgoku Bijutsu-ten Series 5 Min Shin no Bijutsu/ Chinese Art Exhibition Series 5: Art of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Osaka City Museum of Fine Arts, Osaka, 1980, p.39, cat. no. 1-166.

Note: A closely related pair of bows, from the Samuel C. Davis collection was sold separately in our New York rooms, the first, 27th May 1990, lot 190, and the second, 26th November 1991, lot 356; and two further bowls were sold in these rooms, one from the Meiyintang collection, 7th April 2011, lot 7, and the other, 11thApril 2008, lot 2834.

The doucai technique of outlining in underglaze-blue and colouring in enamel washes traditionally made use of the wucai (famille-verte) palette but later also incorporated fencai (famille-rose) enamels. The colour scheme used on this bowl is particularly interesting, since only one of the fruiting branches, that of the pomegranates, uses rose-pink enamel.