Lot 4067. A very rare blue and white 'Phoenix' bowl, Wanli six-character mark within double-circles and of the period (1573-1619), 8 in. (20.2 cm.) diam. Estimate HKD 800,000 - HKD 1,500,000. Price realised HKD 1,460,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2012

The interior is finely painted with two swooping phoenix on a dense lotus scroll ground within a medallion. The cavetto is encircled by eight phoenix roundels below a border of lingzhi fungus at the rim. The exterior is similarly painted with phoenixes in flight between aWan and trellis border at the rim and lappets around the foot, box.

Exhibited: David Lin & Company, Yuan and Ming Blue and White Porcelain, Taipei, 2000, pl. 20  

Note: Compare with a very similar example in the National Palace Museum Collection, Taipei, illustrated in Blue-and-White Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Book VI, CAFA, Hong Kong, 1963, no. 16, p. 60, pls. 16 a-c. Another nearly identical Wanli-marked bowl from the Dr Ip Yee Collection was sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 19 November 1984, lot 190. 

The archaistic phoenix motif on the present bowl found its inspiration from examples produced earlier in the Xuande period (1426-1435) such as the Xuande-marked phoenix dish from the Robert Chang Collection, sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 1 November 2004, lot 864. 

Christie's. Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, 30 May 2012, Hong Kong, HKCEC Grand Hall