Lot 5. A 'moon white' 'Jun' bowl, Song dynasty. Diameter 8 1/4  in., 21.2 cm. Estimate 30,000 — 50,000 USD. Lot sold 37,500 USD. Photo: Sotheby's.

with steep rounded sides rising to a delicately incurved rim, covered overall in an evenly applied 'moon white' glaze of milky lavender-blue suffused with a pale crackle and draining to a mushroom color at the rim, the glaze pooling unevenly above the unglazed foot ring, Japanese wood box (2). 

Provenance: Mayuyama & Co., Ltd., Tokyo.
Private Japanese Collection. 

Note: One of the 'five famous wares of the Song dynasty', 'Jun' ware was much admired for the beauty of its glaze, which ranged from moon-white to sky-blue, and often contrasted against a vivid purple splash. Deriving its name from the kiln near Juntai terrace within the north gate of the Yuzhou prefecture in Henan province,  'Jun' wares were produced from the end of the Northern Song period to the Ming dynasty. 

See a 'moon-white'-glazed 'Jun' bowl of closely related color but of slightly different proportions, in the Qing court collection, illustrated in Selection of Jun Ware: the Palace Museum’s Collection and Archaeological Excavation, Beijing, 2013, cat. no. 9.  See another 'Jun' bowl of closely related form and size, but with a sky-blue glaze, discovered in 1963 at Huangzhuang, Henan province and now in the Henan Provincial Museum, published in Zhongguo taoci quanji [Complete series on Chinese Ceramics], Shanghai, 1999-2000, vol. 7, pl. 186.

Compare a bowl of similar size, form and color sold in these rooms, 23rd March 2011, lot 543. 

Sotheby's. Monochrome, New York, 15 sept. 2015