Note: Globular bowls of this type were known as pure water bowls, qingshuiwan. They were used in Buddhist rituals as vessels containing sacred water used to purify the heart.

Two unmarked early Ming blue and white bowls decorated with the same design include one dated to the Xuande period in the British Museum illustrated by J. Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, p. 132, no. 4:22; the other, dated to the Yongle period, in the Meiyintang Collection, is illustrated by R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 4, London, 2010, no, 1649.

Small blue and white globular porcelain bowl with underglaze blue decoration, Ming dynasty, Xuande period (1426-1435). Height: 7.5 cm. Donated by Sir John M Addis, 1975,1028.10 © 2017 Trustees of the British Museum

A number of Xuande-marked examples exist in private and museum collections including one in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, which is illustrated in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Selected Hsuan-te Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1998, pp. 60-61; another is illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1987, pl. 636. Compare, also, an example from the E.T. Chow Collection sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 19 May 1981, lot 402, and another sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 2 May 2005, lot 508.

Christie's. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART, 18 – 19 September 2014, New York, Rockefeller Plaza