Lot 135. A Fine Anhua-Decorated Blue and White Conical Bowl, Xuande six-character mark in underglaze blue within a double circle and of the period (1426-1435); 8in. (20.3cm.) diam. Falk Collection no. 247. Estimate USD 250,000 - USD 350,000. Price realised USD 358,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2001

Painted in rich underglaze blue on the exterior with a scrolling leafy stem bearing six large herbaceous peony blossoms alternating with buds above a band of overlapping petal tips, and on the interior with a mallow blossom in the center below anhua decoration of scrolling flowers under the glaze, box.

Provenance: Edward T. Chow Collection.
Mathias Komor, New York, December 1951.. 

Literature: H.D. Ling and E.T. Chow, Complete Collection of Ming Dynasty Kingtehchen Porcelain from the Hall of Disciplined Learning, in two volumes, Hong Kong, 1950, vol. I, no. 44, p. 32.
M. Komor, Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, New York, 1951, no. 28.  

Note: This is one of the most elegant bowl designs made at the imperial kilns in the Xuande reign. A bowl of the same size with exactly the same decoration as the Falk bowl is in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, and is illustrated in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Selected Hsüan-te Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1998, pp. 176-7, no. 61. One of these bowls is also in the collection of the Shanghai Museum and is illustrated by Wang Qingzheng in Underglaze Blue and Red, Hong Kong, 1993, p. 88, no. 61. Another Xuande bowl of the same size is in the collection of the Percival David Foundation, illustrated by R. Scott in Elegant Form and Harmonious Decoration - Four Dynasties of Jingdezhen Porcelain, Singapore, 1992, p. 45, no. 34. It is interesting to note that these bowls were so admired by the Qianlong emperor that he had close copies made at the imperial kilns during his reign, as shown by the Qianlong example in the Percival David Foundation, illustrated in Elegant Form and Harmonious Decoration, p. 147, no. 168.

Bowl with lotus flowers, Ming dynasty, Xuande mark and period, AD1426–35. Porcelain with underglaze cobalt-blue and anhua decoration, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province. 7,6 x 20,8 cm. Percival David Foundation, PDF B636 © 2017 Trustees of the British Museum

Christie's. THE FALK COLLECTION I: FINE CHINESE CERAMICS & WORKS OF ART, 16 October 2001, New York