A peachbloom-glazed brushwasher, tangle xi, Kangxi six-character mark in underglaze blue and of the period (1662-1722). © Christie's Image 2003

The exterior of the compressed body covered with a glaze of slightly grey-toned rose color with patches of pale yellowish-green mottling ending in a neat line at the white-glazed mouth rim and on the edge of the low, tapering foot, the interior glazed white. 4 5/8in. (11.8cm.) diam. Lot 332. Estimate $6,000 - $8,000. Price Realized $5,975 

Provenance: Clapp & Graham Co., Inc., New York. 

Property from the Hunting Folger Deutsch collection

Notes: This brushwasher is one of the eight classic shapes made for the writing table, ba da ma, or 'Eight Great Numbers'. The peachbloom glaze was reserved almost exclusively for these wares. Two complete assembled sets are in museum collections: one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, rev. ed. illustrated by S. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, rev. ed. 1989, p. 237, and another previously in the collection of the Tsui Museum, Hong Kong, later sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 3 November 1996, lot 557, and now in the Baur Collection, Geneva, illustrated by J. Ayers, 'The 'Peachbloom' Wares of the Kangxi period (1662-1722)', T.O.C.S., 1999-2000, vol. 64, pp. 31-50. 

Christie's. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART, 18 September 2003, New York, Rockefeller Plaza