Lot 504. A large blue and white 'dragon' bowl, Jiajing mark and period (1522-1566). Diameter 12 1/4  in., 31.1 cm. Estimate 40,000 — 60,000 USD. Lot Sold 100,000 USD. Courtesy Sotheby's.

the deep, rounded sides sweeping up from a slightly tapered foot to an everted rim, the exterior painted in bright cobalt tones with two five-clawed dragons each in pursuit of a 'flaming pearl', their long sinuous bodies covered in scales and accented with a ridged spine, amid clouds and flame scrolls, a band of ruyi heads bordering the foot, the interior unadorned, the base with a six-character mark in underglaze blue within a double circle.

Property from the Collection of Roger Youngman.

Provenance: Collection of Nancy (1915-2005) and Ira M. (1912-2004) Koger.
Ralph M. Chait Galleries, New York. 

Exhibited: Inaugural Exhibition of the Robert F. Reiff Gallery of Asian Art, Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, Vermont, September 2005.
Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, Vermont, February 2008.

Literature: John Ayers, Chinese Ceramics. The Koger Collection, London, 1985, pl. 57.

Note: Jiajing bowls of this large size and decorated with underglaze-blue dragons are rare. For closely related examples, see a nearly identical Jiajing mark and period bowl, from the collection of Ichiro Hayashibara, sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 9th October 2012, lot 3063; another, roughly this size but with a scrolling peony ground and a lappet band, sold in the same rooms, 4th April 2012, lot 3161; and a second of that type sold in our London rooms, 9th November 2016, lot 122. Compare also a bowl of similar form and size to the present example, but painted with phoenix amongst flower scrolls above the ruyi band, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red, vol. II, Shanghai, 2000, pl. 142.

Versions of these large bowls painted in iron-red rather than underglaze blue also exist. See, for instance, a bowl also from the Nancy and Ira Koger Collection, and later in the Meiyintang Collection, illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 4, pt. 1, London, 2010, pl. 1686. 

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, New York, 20 march 2019