Lot 1074. A very rare early Ming blue and white mantou xin bowl , Xuande six-character mark with a double circle and of the period (1426-1435), 6 1/4 in. (15.8 cm.) diam. Estimate HKD 500,000 - HKD 700,000. Price Realized HKD 1,519,750. © Christie's Images Ltd 2004

Finely potted with shallow rounded sides flaring to the mouth rims, decorated on the interior convex medallion with four stylised pointed petals, enclosed by a floral scroll within double-line borders below a further band of upright petals each interlocked by spearheads borne on an inter-connected stem, encircled with a freize of classic scrolls below the mouth rim, the exterior decorated with a register of delicately painted lotus scroll above overlapping lotus petals enclosing the neat foot, the concave base bearing the reign mark (crack restored) 

Note: An identical Xuande-marked bowl from the Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, is illustrated by D. Lion Goldschmidt, La Porcelaine Ming, 1978, p. 102, pl. 75.

It is evident that the present bowl followed closely in design and shape to its earlier Yongle prototype. Compare this exact arrangement of floral registers on a Yongle bowl included in the exhibition, Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain Excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, 1996, illustrated in the Catalogue, p. 228, pl. 83; where the author notes its Islamic form and decoration as being influenced by trade with the Middle East in the Yongle period. 

Compare with two related bowls of the Yongle period, both decorated with Persian inscriptions below the exterior mouth rims, the first in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, included in the Special Exhibition of Early Ming Porcelains, 1982, illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 29; and the other from the E. T. Chow and T. Y. Chao Collections, sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 18 November 1986, lot 41, and illustrated in Blue and White Porcelains in the Collection of the Tianminlou Foundation, Hong Kong, 1996, p. 222, no. 94. Also compare a Yongle bowl with a floral band below the exterior mouth rim in the British Museum collection, illustrated by J. Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics, London, 2001, fig. 3:27. 

Mantou bowl, Ming dynasty, Yongle period (1403-1424), Jingdezhen, porcelain with underglaze blue decoration. Diameter: 13.3 cm, Height: 4.5 cm. 1953,0415.1 © 2017 Trustees of the British Museum

Christie's. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART, 1 November 2004, Hong Kong