A foliate-rim 'Yue' bowl, Five dynasties, 10th century. Estimate 10,000 — 15,000 USD. Photo Sotheby's

finely potted with rounded sides rising steeply to a neatly divided six-lobed rim, the interior freely carved with a lotus flower within four stylized wave patterns, applied overall with a thin gray-green glaze, all supported on short tapered foot. Diameter 5 3/4  in., 14.6 cm

Property of the Bai Ma Xuan Collection

Notes: Similar examples of this form found in museum collections include one in the British Museum, London illustrated in Stacey Pierson, Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art: A Guide to the Collection, London, 2002, p. 33., no. 6; another in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London in Rose Kerr, Song Dynasty Ceramics, London, 2004. p. 16, nos. 8 and 8a and in the Ashmolean, Oxford illustrated in Mary Tregear, Catalogue of Chinese Greenware in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1976. no. 200. Late Tang dynasty related examples with less prominent quatrilobe form were recovered from the Belitung wreck dated to 825-850 and illustrated in Shipwrecked, Tang Treasures and Monsoon Winds, ed. Regina Krahl, John Guy, Julian Raby, Singapore, 2010, nos. 251-253 where the authors note that Yue stonewares were held in high regard during the late Tang dynasty, second only to Xing wares and that 'quality control was strict' and therefore production limited, ibid. p. 69. 

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