Lot 1658. A rare Blue and White 'Flower' Meiping, Ming Dynasty, Yongle period (1403-1424); 24.8cm., 9 3/4 in. Estimate 800,000 — 1,200,000 HKD. Lot sold 960,000 HKD. Courtesy Sotheby's 2006. 

of finely potted baluster form rising to a short waisted neck with an everted lip, the body well painted in classic contrasting tones of dark cobalt-blue with a scrolling meander of leafy stems, ears of millet, lotus blooms and buds, between double line borders, the foot encircled with a band of six lotus sprays, the shoulder with a scrolling leafy meander, all within double line borders, the recessed base unglazed.

Note: Yongle meiping of this pattern can be found in important museum collections, see one in the Shanghai Museum illustrated in Wang Qing Zheng, Underglaze Blue and Red, Hong Kong, 1993, pl. 53; two in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in Blue and White Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Book 1, Hong Kong, 1993, pls. 14 and 15; one in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., published in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol. 9, Tokyo, 1981, pl. 92; and one illustrated in the Chinese Porcelain, The S.C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, Hong Kong, 1987, pl. 11, formerly in the T.Y. Chao collection and sold in our London rooms, 1st April 1974, lot 192, again in these rooms, 29th November 1977, lot 23, and again, 18th November 1986, lot 42.

Compare a closely related meiping from the Morrill Collection, included in an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1971, cat.no. 142, and sold at Doyle New York, 16th September 2003, lot 87. Another related meiping was sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 30th October 2001, lot 783. 

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Hong Kong, 10 Apr 2006