A fine and very rare pair of doucai ‘lotus-scroll’ bowls, Yongzheng six-character marks in underglaze-blue within double-circles

31 mai 2019

A fine and very rare pair of doucai ‘lotus-scroll’ bowls, Yongzheng six-character marks in underglaze-blue within double-circles

A fine and very rare pair of doucai ‘lotus-scroll’ bowls, Yongzheng six-character marks in underglaze-blue within double-circles and of the period (1723-1735)

Lot 2804. A fine and very rare pair of doucai ‘lotus-scroll’ bowls, Yongzheng six-character marks in underglaze-blue within double-circles and of the period (1723-1735); 4 in. (10cm.) diam. Estimate HKD 1,600,000 - HKD 2,600,000. Price realised HKD 2,500,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019

The exterior of each bowl is delicately outlined in underglaze-blue and enamelled in yellow, aubergine, green and iron-red, with four lotus flower borne on undulating branches above a band of lotus lappets encircling the foot, box.

Provenance: Sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 15 November 1988, lot 349
Sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 29 April 1996, lot 756.

Note: Yongzheng doucai vessels are much inspired by Chenghua porcelain in terms of the choice of the motifs, painting style and the softness of the enamel colours. The depiction of the ‘pomegranate-shaped’ pistil seen on the present bowls is closely modelled after that found on Chenghua prototypes, as evinced by an iron-red decorated blue and white cup in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Ch’eng-hua Porcelain Ware, Taipei, 2003, no. 54 (fig. 1). Three Chenghua-style doucai dishes from the Jiajing period painted with the same lotus-scroll motif are illustrated ibid., nos. 119-121, with no. 121 bearing a Jiajing reign mark.

An iron-red decorated blue and white cup, Chenghua period (1465-1487), Collection of National Palace Museum, Taipei

fig. 1. An iron-red decorated blue and white cup, Chenghua period (1465-1487), Collection of National Palace Museum, Taipei.

The pattern on the current pair of bowls is very rare, and only one other example of this pattern appears to have been published, which is in the Jingdezen Ceramic Museum, illustrated in Jiangxi cangci quanji – Qingdai, vol. 1, Beijing, 2005, p. 161 (fig. 2).