A rare Ming-style yellow-ground blue and white conical bowl, Qianlong six-character seal mark in underglaze blue and of the period (1736-1795). Estimate 150,000 – $200,000. Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2015

Of conical form, the bowl is strongly potted with wide flaring sides rising from a spreading foot to an everted rim. The interior is delicately painted with a central medallion enclosing a leafy spray of chrysanthemum, surrounded by six evenly spaced floral sprays in the cavetto, which are lotus, mallow, camelia, chrysanthemum, gardenia, and hibiscus, below a narrow band of floral sprigs at rim. The exterior is similarly painted, with a thin band of key fret to the underside of the everted rim and a band of cloud scroll encircling the foot, all against a bright lemon-yellow enamel ground, continuing onto the base around the underglaze-blue mark, save for the exterior of the foot covered with a green enamel. 10 ¼ in. (26 cm.) diam., Japanese wood box

Note: The shape of this bowl and the design in underglaze blue comprised of varying floral sprays are inspired by a Xuande prototype, such as the example in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Selected Hsüan-te Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, Taipei, 1998, pp. 178-9, no. 62. The addition of a yellow enamel ground to this design and shape was an innovation of the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen during the Yongzheng period. In his Taocheng jishi, 'Account of Porcelain Achievement', compiled in 1735, Tang Ying includes a list of fifty-seven types of wares supplied to the court, one of which was described as 'Xuande-style design on yellow ground', and noted to be a newly developed category of the period. 

Similar Qianlong-marked bowls are found in the Qing Court Collection and international museums. The National Palace Museum, Taipei, has nine examples listed on the online archive, museum numbers: zhongci 003353N-003361N. Another example is in the Baur Foundation, illustrated by J. Ayers in The Baur Collection Geneva, vol. IV, Geneva, 1974, no. A584; another in the Nanjing Museum, included in the exhibition catalogue Qing Imperial Porcelain, Hong Kong, 1995, no. 79, and again illustrated in The Official Kiln Porcelain of the Chinese Qing Dynasty, Shanghai, 2003, p. 216. 

Christie’s. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART, 17 - 18 September 2015, New York, Rockefeller Plaza