A rare pair of 'Yaozhou’ carved 'lotus' dishes, Northern  Song dynasty. Estimate 300,000 — 400,000 HKD (33,991 - 45,321 EUR).  Photo Sotheby's.

each sturdily potted with a slightly concave interior, with an upturned rim rising from slanted sides above a low foot, finely and freely carved to the centre with a fanciful lotus bloom and large leaf borne on scrolling stems, covered overall in a bright celadon glaze of olive-green colour draining from the rim and pooling to deeper shades in the recesses, the knife-pared footring left unglazed - 18.3 cm., 7 1/4  in.

Provenance: Matthias Komor, New York, 1954.
Cox Family Collection.
Sotheby’s New York, 20th March 2012, lot 31.

Notes: Dishes carved with this lyrical design are held in important museums and private collections worldwide; one in the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, is illustrated in Zhongguo taoci quanji [The complete works of Chinese ceramics], vol. 7, Shanghai, 2000, pl. 123; two in the Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, are published in the Illustrated Catalogues of Tokyo National Museum. Chinese Ceramics I, Tokyo, 1988, pls. 470 and 471; another in the Meiyintang collection, is illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 1, London, 1994, pl. 414; and a further example, from the Scheinmen collection, was sold at Christie’s New York, 23rd March 1995, lot 82.

This design is also know on Yaozhou bowls, such as one in the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, included in the exhibition Ice and Green Clouds. Traditions of Chinese Celadon, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, 1987, cat. no. 60, where the author refers to a group of eighteen dishes of various sizes recovered from three iron cooking pots, excavated in Huachixian, Gansu province (see p. 156).  

Sotheby's. Chinese Art, Hong Kong, 03 déc. 2015, 02:00 PM