The bowl is sturdily potted with tall rounded sides rising from a short foot ring, the interior is carved with a large carp swimming in a pond and the exterior is carved with four rows of overlapping petals. The vessel is covered overall with an ivory-coloured glaze with the mouth rim left unglazed to show the pale body.

Provenance: Sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong 31 October, 1995, lot 343.

Literature: Sotheby's Hong Kong, Sotheby's Thirty Years in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2003, p. 127, no. 103.

Note: Ding bowls of this large size and form are rare to find. The bold, free and expressive strokes seen to the interior of this bowl indicate that this is a particularly successful example of incised Ding ware produced at the period. Compare this to a Ding bowl from the Qing Court collection, similarly decorated with fish to the interior, illustrated in Porcelain of the Song Dynasty (I), The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1996, pp. 64-65, no. 56. Another example from the Percival David Collection is illustrated by M. Tregear in Song Ceramics, London, 1982, pl. 29. The British Museum also has another comparable bowl illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol. 5, 1981, no. 56. A bowl also carved with fish designs to the interior is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Ting Ware White Porcelain, Taipei, 1987, pl. 31. A slightly smaller Ding bowl (26.7 cm. diam.) carved with three fish swimming amidst waterweeds, which was sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 28 May 2014, lot 3212 (fig .1).

fig. 1 A Ding carved 'fish' bowl, Northern Song dynasty (960-1127); 26.7 cm diam. Sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 28 May 2014, lot 3212. © Christie's Images Ltd 2014.