Lot 69. A matched pair of carved qingbai ‘Floral scroll’ bowls, Song dynasty. Estimate 40,000 — 60,000 GBP. Lot sold 50,000 GBP. Photo: Sotheby’s

each delicately potted with flaring conical sides supported on a straight foot, freely carved to the interior with three floral blooms borne on an undulating leafy scroll, all reserved on a ground of combed spirals, covered overall in a vitreous pale blue glaze, the base unglazed revealing the buff-coloured body mottled with greyish-brown   Quantité: 2 – 19.7cm., 7 ¾ in.

PROVENANCE: Collection of Francisco Capelo.

Notes: Qingbai wares were manufactured in a number of kilns in the provinces of Jiangxi, Fujian and Anhui from at least the 10th century, and their popularity continued throughout the Song dynasty (960-1279) due to their luminous jade-like appearance.  The Southern Song ceramic historian, Jiang Qi notes in his treatise Tao ji (Ceramic Records) that white porcelain produced in Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province was so refined and pure that it was known as Raoyu (jade of Rao), the region in which the Jingdezhen kilns were located. Although the early potters at Jingdezhen may have modelled their earliestqingbai pieces on Yue ware, by the Five Dynasties and Northern Song periods they often looked to Ding ware for aesthetic inspiration. The swift and confident lines of carving as well as the combed ground are comparable with a lobed Ding bowl decorated with lotus blooms, from the Carl Kempe collection, illustrated in Jan Wirgin, Sung Ceramic Designs, Stockholm, 1970, pl. 63a, and sold in these rooms, 14thMay 2008, lot 252.

Qingbai bowls of this type include a smaller example in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Porcelain of the Song Dynasty (II), Hong Kong, 1996, pl. 186; and one in the British Museum, London, published in Stacey Pierson, Qingbai Ware. Chinese Porcelain of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, London, 2002, pl. 11. Compare also a bowl with lobed rim, illustrated in John Ayers, The Baur Collection, Geneva. Chinese Ceramics, vol. 1, Geneva, 1968, pl. A121; and another in the collection of Gerard M. Greenwald, sold at Christie’s New York, 16thSeptember 2011, lot 1469.

Sotheby’s. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Londres | 05 nov. 2014, 10:00 AM