Lot 2923. A fine pair of pink-ground famille rose ‘medallion’ bowls, Daoguang six-character seal marks in underglaze blue and of the period (1821-1850); 5 3⁄4 in. (14.8 cm.) diam., box. Price realised HKD 2,750,000 (Estimate HKD 1,500,000 - HKD 2,500,000 ). © Christie's 2021

The exterior of each bowl is delicately enamelled with stylised lotus sprays on a pink sgraffiato ground reserved with four circular panels of flowering shrubs and trees. The interior is painted in underglaze-blue on a white ground with a rabbit below a paulownia tree in a roundel at the centre below four composite flowering shrubs at the sides.

Provenance: The Yangzhitang Collection
The Yangzhitang Collection of Imperial Porcelain of the Late Qing Dynasty, sold at Christie's Singapore, 30 March 1997, lot 270
Sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 1 December 2010, lot 3207.

Exhibited: Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Imperial Porcelain of Late Qing From the Simon Kwan Collection, 1983, Catalogue, p. 63, no. 37 (one illustrated).

Note: A pair of bowls of this design in the Hong Kong Museum of Art was included in their exhibition The Wonders of the Potter's Palette, Hong Kong, 1984, illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 103; and another in the Roemer Museum Hildesheim by S. Lee, Selected Far Eastern Art in the Yale University Art Gallery, no. 389. A single example in the Musée Guimet is illustrated by D. Lion-Goldschmidt, Les Poteries et Porcelaines Chinoises, pl XXVII (D); and one in the National Gallery of Victoria was included in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Exhibition of late Chinese Imperial Porcelain, 1980, illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 16. A similar pair was sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 31 October 1994, lot 675.

Christie's. Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Hong Kong, 3 Dec 2021