Lot 3105. A rare blue and white dragon vase, Qing dynasty, Kangxi period (1662-1722); 45.5 cm., 17 7/8 in. Estimate 500,000 — 700,000 HKD. Lot Sold 980,000 HKD. Photo Sotheby's

of ovoid form, rising to a rounded shoulder collared with three shallow stepped rings, below a waisted neck flaring at the mouth, painted in brilliant tones of cobalt-blue in line and wash with two leaping four-clawed dragons, each rising from white-capped swirling waves around the base, chasing after a 'flaming pearl' above angular rocks, all beneath pencilled borders of spirals and circles at the base of the neck.

Provenance: Collection of H.M. Knight.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 28th November 1979, lot 206. 

Note: A closely related example of slightly larger dimensions, from the Richard Bennett and Charles Russell collections, is illustrated in R.L. Hobson, The Later Ceramic Wares of China, London, 1925. Compare also a vase of this form and size and decorated with a similar scene, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, published in Chen Runmin, Qing Shunzhi Kangxi qiao qinghua ci, Beijing, 2005, pl. 256; another sold at Christie's, 5th October 1970; and a third slightly smaller example sold in these rooms, 19th May 1982, lot 216.

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Hong Kong, 08 april 2011