of broad pear shape with waisted neck, flared rim and low foot, decorated around the widest part with an incised lotus scroll with four large blooms among foliage, a border of billowing waves below and sprays of lotus, rose, peony and camellia at the neck below upright leaves and a classic-scroll border, leaving the uppermost area at the rim undecorated, all covered with a smooth white glaze.

Provenance: Sotheby's New York, 23rd September 1997, lot 263.

Literature: Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4, no. 1631.

Note: Monochrome white bottles of this form are surprisingly rare, as this shape is well known in the Yongle period in blue and white, and those that exist are rarely incised with a lotus design. A similar white bottle with incised pomegranate design is illustrated in The Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1991, pl. 60; another from the Baur Collection, Geneva, in John Ayers, Chinese Ceramics in the Baur Collection, Geneva, 1999, vol. 1, pl. 60; and a fragmentary piece with flower scroll design, converted in the Ottoman period into a drinking flask (matara) by addition of metal mounts, is published in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, London, 1986, vol. 2, no. 635. A blue and white version is published in Porcelain of the National Palace Museum. Blue-and-White Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Hong Kong, 1963, book 1, pp. 44f., pl. 2.