The bowl is of widely flared conical shape with a hexalobed rim, the finely potted wide sides supported on a short foot, applied overall with a persimmon glaze thinning at the rim to dark brown tone, the foot left unglazed to reveal the white body.

Provenance: The Ten-views Lingbi Rock Retreat Collection, purchased from Courage and Joy Asian Art Advisory, no. CY2.

Note: Ding lobed bowls covered with this lustrous russet-brown glaze are highly prized for their discerning craftsmanship which draws inspiration from the beauty of nature in both its lobed form and colour.

It is rare to find a Ding bowl of this fine shape and exquisite glaze color. Although persimmon-glazed bowls were made by many northern kilns in China, the striking near-white body visible through the glaze at the rim is a distinctive feature of wares produced at the Ding kilns.

The technique of producing the russet-brown hue on the rim of Ding wares, reminiscent of brown lacquers of the Northern Song dynasty, is worth noting. The color is in fact a film that was produced when the dark brown glaze was over-saturated with iron and the excess iron crystallized out at the surface during firing and cooling.

Compare with a smaller example, in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., published in Oriental Ceramics: The World's Greatest Collections, vol. 9, Tokyo, 1981, no. 62 (fig.1); another Ding bowl in the National Museum of Tokyo, illustrated in Catalogue of Tokyo National Museum. Chinese Ceramics, vol. I, Tokyo, 1988, cat. no. 368; see another six-lobed Ding bowl in the Chang Foundation, Taipei, illustrated in James Spencer, Selected Chinese Ceramics from Han to Qing Dynasties, Taipei, 1990, pl. 28. See a very similar example sold in Poly Beijing, 5 June 2019, lot.5463, at RMB 2,185,000 (fig.2).

Poly Auction Hong Kong. Immaculately Exquisite - Selected Chinese Ceramics from The Ten-Views Lingbi Rock Retreat Collection, Hong Kong, 7 October  2019