Lot 3633. A rare white-glazed lobed brushwasher, Mark and period of Zhengde (1506-1521); 19.6 cm., 7 5/8  in.. Estimate 400,000 — 600,000 HKD. Unsold. Photo courtesy Sotheby's

the finely potted flaring sides resting on a countersunk base, the sides rising from a footring subtly divided into ten bracket lobes to a rim of corresponding form, the base inscribed in underglaze blue with a four-character reign mark within a double-circle; 19.6 cm., 7 5/8  in.

Provenance: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 8th/9th November 1982, lot 120.

Notes: White brush washers of this distinctive mallow shape were first designed in the Yongle period, although no complete example may have survived from that period. A broken vessel excavated from the imperial kiln site at Jingdezhen was included in the exhibition Jingdezhen Zhushan chutu Yongle guanyao ciqi [Yongle Imperial porcelain excavated at Zhushan, Jingdezhen], Capital Museum, Beijing, 2007, cat. no. 11.

Another white-glazed Zhengde brushwasher of identical form and size, from the Eumorfopoulos, Cunliffe and Meiyintang collections, was sold in these rooms, 7th April 2011, lot 59. See also an example from the collection of Nancy and Ira Koger, illustrated in Geng Baochang, Ming Qing ciqi jianding, Beijing, 1993, p. 116, fig. 216, and sold three times in our rooms, in London 9th December 1986, lot 222, in New York 27th November 1990, lot 8, and here in Hong Kong 26th October 1993, lot 58. Two similar washers from the Carl Kempe collection, published in Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Ceramics in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1964, nos. 687-8, were sold in our Paris rooms, 12th June 2008, lots 46 and 50.

A washer of this design from the Chinese imperial collection, supported on a wooden stand is depicted in the handscroll Guwantu ('Pictures of Antiques') in the Sir Percival David Collection, now in the British Museum, London, which is dated in accordance with AD 1728; see China. The Three Emperors 1662-1795, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2005-6, cat. no. 168.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Works of Art, Hong Kong, 07 avr. 2015