Lot 3677. A large blue and white 'Lotus' bowl, Mark and period of Xuande (1426-1435), 29.5 cm, 11 5/8  in. Estimate 2,500,000 — 3,500,000 HKD. Lot sold for 3,220,000. Photo: Sotheby's.

sturdily potted with thick deep rounded walls resting on a short foot, the exterior finely decorated in shaded tones of cobalt blue with eight lotus blooms borne on and wreathed by undulating foliate scrolls above a border of upright lotus petal lappets, all between two bands enclosing clouds wisps encircling the rim and foot.

Note: This bowl is a rare version of an important and interesting group of blue and white porcelain from the Xuande period. This group of bowls are characterised by their large yet finely potted shallow form, deliberate sturdily potted walls, evidenced in the walls which are about 1 cm thick, their exquisitely painted designs rendered in cobalt blue on the exterior and their undecorated interior. The thickness of the potting is gracefully counterbalanced through the delicate and lyrical design of lotus blooms set within ‘C’ scrolls, a movement that is accentuated through the clouds that border it. Almost all of these bowls have the six-character reign mark of Xuande written just below the rim and it is only on the present type that the mark appears under a cloud scroll at the rim, a motif that is repeated on the foot.

Closely related bowls include one of similar size included in the exhibition Chinese Porcelain. The S.C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1987, cat. no. 25; one from the Frederick T. Fuller collection, sold at Christie’s London, 28th/29th June 1965, lot 146, and again in our London rooms, 10th June 1986, lot 222; another from the J.M. Hu collection, sold in our New York rooms, 4th June 1985, lot 6; and a fourth example sold in our London rooms, 12th December 1978, lot 379. Slightly smaller examples are also known, such as one in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in the Museum’s Special Exhibition of Selected Hsuan-te Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, Taipei, 1998, cat. no. 43; a bowl in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, illustrated in Sekai toji zenshu/Ceramic Art of the World, vol. 14, Tokyo, 1976, pl. 150; one sold in these rooms, 14th November 1989, lot 19, and three times at Christie’s Hong Kong, 3rd November 1996, lot 710, 27th May 2008, lot 1847, and 1st December 2010, lot 3112; and another sold at Christie’s New York, 23rd June 1982, lot 86.

Blue-and-white bowl with lotus scrolls, Ming Dynasty, Xuande Mark and Period (1426 - 1435), Jingdezhen Zhushan kiln-sites, porcelain, with underglaze painting in cobalt-blue, 9.5 cm (height), 28 cm (diameter), at foot 11.2 cm (diameter). Bequeathed by J. Francis Mallett, 1947. EAX.1389 © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, Hong Kong, 03 Oct 2017