Lot 130. A pair of fine famille-rose 'balsam pear' bowls, Qianlong seal marks and period (1736-1795). Diameter 4 3/8  in., 11.1 cm. Estimate 60,000 — 80,000. Lot sold 118,750 USD. © Sotheby's.

each with deep rounded sides rising from a straight foot to an everted rim, finely enameled with a balsam pear vine twisting around the exterior suspending ripe fruit bursting with seeds and issuing verdant leaves and pale yellow blossoms, bamboo shoots rising to one side of the vine and a butterfly fluttering nearby, the motif repeated at the interior, the base with a six-character seal mark in underglaze blue (2).

Property from the Estate of Aron and Elizabeth Landauer. 

Provenance: Alberts-Langdon, Boston, 17th January 1969.

Note: A pair of bowls of this type, from the Percival David Collection and now in the British Museum, London, is illustrated in Catalogue of Ch’ing Enamelled Wares, London, 1958, pl. 897; a bowl in the Musée Guimet, Paris, is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics. The World Great Collections, vol. 7, Tokyo, 1981, pl. 91; and another is published in the Illustrated Catalogue of Tokyo National Museum. Chinese Ceramics, vol. 2, Tokyo, 1980, pl. 660. A fine pair of bowls from the Alfred Beit Collection, sold in our London rooms, 6th November 2013, lot 78; another fine pair sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 8th October 2014, lot 3646; a single bowl of this type sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 27th May 2014, lot 724; another, from the Wen Tsan Yu Collection, sold at Christie's New York, 18th-19th September 2014, lot 959; and a third sold in these rooms, 21st March 2018, lot 543.