Lot 504. A superbly enamelled yellow-ground 'falangcai' bowl, puce enamel Yuzhi mark and period of Kangxi, 14.2 cm., 5 1/2 in. Estimate 5,000,000 — 7,000,000 HKD. Lot sold 8,384,000 HKD. Photo: Sotheby's

finely potted with deep rounded sides rising from a short foot to an everted rim, delicately painted on the exterior with flowering chrysanthemum, day lily, and rose, the intermingling branches rising from the base and bearing luscious blooms in shaded tones of pink, lilac, blue, and pale lime-green, amid dense curled foliage picked-out in spinach and apple tones of green interspersed with tight and opening buds, all against a bright egg-yolk yellow-ground, the interior and base glazed white, inscribed to the base with the four-character mark within a double square in puce enamel.

Provenance: Acquired in France.

Note: Kangxi pieces enamelled in the Imperial palace workshops are among the rarest types of Imperial porcelain, since this technique of enamelling on porcelain began to be practised in the Forbidden City only in the very last years of the Kangxi reign. The intensity and richness of the enamels achieved by the Imperial enamelling workshops under the Kangxi Emperor is unsurpassed. Since raw materials were scarce and precious, production figures were minimal and every piece received individual treatment.

The present pattern, with its elegant combination of roses, lilies and chrysanthemums, shows one of the rare freely composed flower designs and appears to be unique. Very few pieces with this rich egg-yellow ground from the palace workshops seem to be preserved altogether, and they are more often decorated with formal flower patterns than naturalistically rendered scenes like the present bowl.

Two other yellow-ground Kangxi bowls in the Palace Museum, Beijing, both with naturalistically painted and asymmetrically composed peony designs, are illustrated in Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong. Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1989, pp.99ff., pls 82 and 84, together with a yellow-ground bowl with a formally laid-out, stylized peony pattern, pl.83, all illustrated again in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Porcelains with Cloisonné Enamel Decoration and Famille Rose Decoration, Hong Kong, 1999, pls 4-6. Two further yellow-ground bowls with different composite flower designs were sold in these rooms, one 12/13 May 1976, lot 364; the other 29 November 1978, lot 369, 19 May 1987, lot 311, and again 14 November 1989, lot 319, from the T.Y. Chao collection; and a smaller bowl with flared rim 26 October 2003, lot 19.

Compare also two smaller and shallower yellow-ground bowls with freely painted lotus pond and composite flower designs, respectively, published in Porcelain of the National Palace Museum. Fine-Enamelled Ware of the Ch'ing Dynasty. K'ang-hsi Period, Hong Kong, 1967, pls 25 and 27. 

For the more common, formally decorated bowls with Kangxi yuzhi marks, compare two examples in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, included in the Museum’s Special Exhibition of Ch'ing Dynasty Enamelled Porcelains of the Imperial Ateliers, Taipei, 1992, cat.nos 3 and 4. 

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art: The Collection of a Parisian Connoisseur, Hong Kong, 08 Apr 2007