Two similar yellow ground famille rose medallion bowls, Guangxu six-character marks and of the period. Estimate US$ 8,000 - 12,000 (€7,100 - 11,000). Photo: Bonhams.

Each painted in black outline and pale famille rose enamels with fruiting and flowering gourd vines across with deep curving well below a leiwen band at the rim, both patterns repeated on the exterior walls against a lemon yellow ground separating four roundels, each filled with a lantern, ribboned scepter and a vase with five stalks of grain, the decoration differing mostly in the tiny bosses painted to the lantern bases on one bowl but missing on the second, the mark on the recessed base of each bowl painted iron red regular script. 5 1/4in (13.5cm) diameter

Notes: The roundel illustrates the rebus wugu fengdeng (may there be a bumper harvest of grain): the five grains (wugu) appearing in the vase and the lantern (denglong in Chinese) a pun on bumper harvest (fengdeng). See Terese Tse Bartholomew, Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art, 2006, 8.16.1, p. 241.

A deep bowl of the same shape, decoration and size, also as Guangxu mark and of the period, was sold in Christie's, Hong Kong, sale 2915, lot 4263 (5 3/8in, 13.5cm diameter). See also the smaller shallow bowl with the same decoration and reign mark in the collection of the Nanjing Museum, illustrated in Gongting Zhencang: Zhongguo Qing dai Guanyao Ciqi (Treasures in the Royalty: The Official Kiln Porcelain of the Chinese Qing Dynasty), 2003, p. 469 (12.4cm diameter). 

Bonhams. FINE CHINESE WORKS OF ART AND PAINTINGS, 23 Jun 2015 10:00 PDT - SAN FRANCISCO