Lot 612. A very rare Ming white-glazed lobed brushwasher, Zhengde four-character mark within a double circle and of the period (1506-1521). 7 5/8 in. (19.3 cm.) diam. Estimate HKD 700,000 - HKD 900,000. Price realised HKD 925,000. © Christie's Image Ltd

Exquisitely potted with shallow gently flaring sides divided into ten vertical petal-shaped lobes rising from the foliate foot to the wavy rim, surrounding the flat base, covered entirely with a smooth milky-white glaze with a faint bluish tinge, box.

Note: This floral shape originates in the early 15th century; an unmarked tianbai, 'sweet-white' glazed, ten-lobed brushwasher excavated from the Yongle stratum, was included in the exhibition, Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taibei, 1998, see the Catalogue, p. 262, no. 100. During the early Ming period, brushwashers of this type are also found decorated in underglaze-blue, such as the 'dragon' brushwasher sold in Hong Kong, 5 November 1997, lot 1351, from the Yongle period. Compare also Xuande-marked blue and white examples, in the National Palace Museum, Taibei, decorated with dragon and phoenix roundels, illustrated in Blue-and-White Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Book II, Part I, Hong Kong 1963, pl. 23; and one in the Percival David Foundation, London, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, Kodansha Series, 1982, vol. 6, no. 94, designed with a single dragon on the interior. 

The present brushwasher continued the tradition of the early Ming; for Zhengde-marked white-glazed brushwashers of the present type, cf. two in the National Palace Museum, Taibei, the first included in the Illustrated Catalogue of Ming Dynasty Porcelain, pl. 104, and the second illustrated in Monochrome Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Book II, pl. 1; one in the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, illustrated by J. Wirgin, Chinese Ceramics from the Axel and Nora Lundgren Bequest, pl. 40a, no. 44; the washer previously from the Eumorfopoulos, Cunliffe and T. Y. Chao Collections, sold most recently in Hong Kong, 19 May 1987, lot 251; and another from the Ira and Nancy Koger Collection, sold in New York, 27 November 1990, lot 8.

Christie's. IMPORTANT CHINESE ART, Hong Kong, 30 October 2001