A blue and white 'Floral' basin, Late Ming dynasty, circa 1620s. Estimate 8,000 — 10,000 USD. Photo Sotheby's.

painted in vibrant tones of underglaze blue, the interior with a square-form vase holding a large bouquet of flowering peony stems, flanked to either side by smaller jars containing lotus blooms, butterflies fluttering above, the everted rim encircled by further blooms emerging from rockwork, the exterior with three clusters of lotus alternating with pairs of herons, butterflies and florets along the rim, the base with an apocryphal Chenghua mark, Japanese wood box (2) - Diameter 11 1/4  in., 28.3 cm

Provenance: Private Japanese Collection.

Notes: A closely related basin, bearing a Tianqi mark and of the period, from the Butler Family Collection, is illustrated in Sir Michael Butler and Prof. Wang Qingzheng, Seventeenth Century Jingdezhen Porcelain from the Shanghai Museum and the Butler Collections, Beauty's Enchantment, Shanghai, 2006, pp. 66-67, cat. no. 3 where it is proposed that this particularly form of basin was only made during the Tianqi period and that it may have been used as a dice bowl.  Three other examples are in Japanese museums; the Nezu, the National Museum Tokyo and the Idemitsu. 

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Works of Art, New York, 17 mars 2015, 02:00 PM