Lot 560. A fine and rare early Ming blue and white lianzi bowl, Yongle period (1403-1425); 4 in. (10.3 cm.) diam. Estimate HKD 900,000 - HKD 1,200,000. Price realised HKD 1,174,100. © Christie's Image Ltd 2002

Thinly potted in a rounded conical shape, the exterior is painted in deep violet-blue tones with elongated lappets interlinked with delicate pomegranate silhouettes enclosing trefoils, below a key-fret band at the rim, the interior centred with a stylised floral motif encircled by bands of key-fret, interlocking trefoils and classic scrolls.

Note: A Yongle bowl of this pattern was included in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, Special Exhibition of Early Ming Porcelains, 1982, illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 25; one from the Brankston Collection is in the British Museum, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol. 5, Japan, 1981, no. 167; an identical bowl is illustrated in Mayuyama, Seventy Years, vol. I, pl. 749; and another was included in the 1949 Philadelphia Museum of Art Exhibition of Ming Blue and White, illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 34. Bowls of this type have also sold at auction, one in these Rooms, 1 October 1991, lot 742; and another, in Hong Kong, 27 October 1992, lot 32.

Christie's. The Imperial Sale, Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Hong Kong, 29 April 2002