Lot 3103. A rare doucai 'flower and butterfly' dish, Mark and period of Yongzheng (1723-1735); 20.9 cm, 8 1/4  in. Estimate 1,000,000 — 1,500,000 HKD. Lot sold 1,375,000 HKD. Courtesy Sotheby's

the elegantly rounded sides raised on a slightly tapered foot, superbly painted in vivid enamels within an underglaze-blue outline, the interior with two butterflies hovering above three blooming peonies in lavender, red and yellow, issuing from leafy branches beside a large garden rock, the exterior with branches of flowering peony and dianthus to one side and chrysanthemum and aster to the other, inscribed to the base with a six-character reign mark within a double circle.

Provenance: Collection of Hans Öströms, Stockholm, collection no. 2459.
Collection of Ester and Erik Holmberg (1888-1972), collection no. K 64, and thence by direct descent.

Note: A similar dish, from the J.F. Woodthorpe collection, included in the Oriental Ceramic Society exhibition Enamelled Polychrome Porcelain of the Manchu Dynasty, London, 1951, cat. no. 99, was sold in our London rooms, 6th April 1954, lot 105, and again 17th May 1966, lot 229: another from the Soame Jenyns collection was included in the Oriental Ceramic Society exhibition The Arts of the Ch'ing Dynasty, London, 1964, cat. no. 113; and a third was sold in these rooms, 26th/27th October 1993, lot 154. See also a pair of dishes, formerly sold by Frank Caro, successor to C.T. Loo, New York, in the 1960s and exhibited at San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas, 1984-2017, most recently sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 29th November 2017, lot 2809, from the collection of Dr James D. Thornton.

Sotheby's. Marchant – Fifty Qing Imperial Porcelains, Hong Kong, 11 July 2020