An Yixing stoneware 'toad and tree trunk' vessel. Inscribed Chen Zhongmei. Photo Bonhams.

Deftly potted in the form of a hollow tree trunk with naturalistic whorls and knots, one side with a large frog climbing up and peering over the rim, detailed with large beady eyes and warts on the back revealing it as the male of the species, the underside impressed with the four-character zhuanshu potter's seal mark, the stoneware of a creamy dark brown colour with lighter speckles. 7.2cm wide. Estimate HK$ 400,000 - 600,000 (€38,000 - 58,000). Unsold.

Chen Zhongmei, a native of Wuyuan, left for Yangxian county to become a Yixing potter after the failure of his business in Jingdezhen during the Wanli period (1573-1620). He had great skill in mixing fine Yixing clay, deftly producing vessels adapted from archaistic shapes and naturalistically modelled animals.

Compare with a yixing toad on a pine log, also signed Chen Zhongmei, sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 24 May 1978, lot 344. A water dropper also in the form of a hollow tree trunk and a toad, signed by Jiang Rong, in the K.S.Lo Collection at the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware, is illustrated in Yixing Purple Clay Wares, Hong Kong 2002, p.143, no.95.

Bonhams. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART. Hong Kong, Admiralty, 26 May 2014