Lot 1388. A finely painted Ming blue and white 'Figures' bowl, Chenghua period (1465-1487); 8 in. (22.3 cm.) diam. Estimate HKD 500,000 - HKD 800,000. Price realised HKD 600,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2006.

The rounded sides rising to straight mouthrims, supported on a short splayed foot ring, painted with cobalt of bright blue tones, the exterior decorated with scholars dressed in voluminous robes, their hair swept under a headdress with ribbons billowing in the wind, walking in a landscape scene detailed with bamboo, flowering prunus and pine trees, attended by acolytes variously bearing a qin, flower sprays, and a hoe suspending a basket, all under scattered stylised clouds, the interior with a scholar seated on a mat observing a swan swimming beside an embankment within a double-circle border, repeated under the mouth rim, box.

Note: The present bowl belongs to a group of unmarked examples of this same finely drawn figures-in-landscape design such as the bowl in the Percival David Foundation, illustrated by S. Pierson, Blue and White for China: Porcelain Treasures in the Percival David Collection, London, 2004, p. 70, no. 27 (PDF B631).

Dish with figures in a landscape, Ming dynasty, Chenghua period, AD1465–87, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province. Porcelain with underglaze cobalt-blue decoration. On loan from Sir Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, PDF B631. © Trustees of the British Museum

Christie's. Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Hong Kong, 30 May 2006