Lot 412. A large carved 'Ding' white-glazed 'lotus' bowl, Song dynasty, 25.5 cm, 10 in. Estimate 150,000 — 200,000 HKD. Lot sold 500,000 HKD. Photo: Sotheby's. 

he interior deftly and freely carved with a lotus spray issuing blossoms and curled leaves, applied overall with an even ivory-coloured glaze, metal-bound rim, the base incised with a single character hua.

Note: The present bowl displays all the characteristics attributed to ‘Ding’ wares known in museum and private collections. Celebrated for their thin potting, fine near-white body and an ivory-colored glaze which tends to run down in somewhat darker ‘tears’, ‘Ding’ wares were ranked among the ‘five great wares’ of the Song a term coined by collectors of the Ming and Qing dynasties. 

The kiln site identified with ‘Ding’ ware is located at Quyang in Ding county, Hebei province. This was an area formerly known as ‘Dingzhou’. ‘Ding’ production consisted mostly of small utilitarian wares such as dishes and bowls, generally left in their natural form undecorated in 10th and early 11th century. From the late 11th century and early 12th century they are increasingly incised and carved and later through the thirteenth century mold-impressed and densely patterned. Rose Kerr in her work on the collection of Song ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, mentions that the ‘fact that Ding ware was an official ware made one feature of its decoration especially pronounced. This was its tendency to mimic other, more precious materials such as gold and silver, huge quantities of which were stored in palace treasures’. See Rose Kerr, Song Ceramics, London, 1982, p. 102, for further information.

Sotheby's. Chinese Art, Hong Kong, 01 Jun 2017