Lot 3317. An aubergine and green-enamelled 'dragon' bowl, Kangxi period (1662-1722). D 11.1 cm. Sold for HKD 420,000 (Estimate 350,000 - 550,000). © Poly Auction Hong Kong Limited 2022.

Provenance: 1. Sotheby's Hong Kong, 28 November 1979, lot 284
2. The Greenwald Collection, no. 61
3. A private collection
4. The Ten-views Lingbi Rock Retreat Collection, no. EK404.

Exhibited: Pure and Natural: Special Exhibition of Ming and Qing Monochrome Porcelains , Poly Art Museum, Beijing, 2018, pp.107-108, no.61.

Literature: 1. Gerald M. Greenwald, The Greenwald Collection, Two Thousand Years of Chinese Ceramics , 1996, no. 61
2. Pure and Natural: Special Exhibition of Ming and Qing Monochrome Porcelains , Poly Art Museum, Beijing, 2018, pp.107-108, no.61.

Note: The bowl is potted with deep rounded sides rising from a straight foot to a flared rim and is incised and painted in aubergine enamel against a bright green ground. The exterior is decorated with two ferocious dragons striding amid radiating cloud wisps and flame scrolls in pursuit of 'flaming pearls', all above turbulent cresting waves. The interior is glazed white. The base in inscribed with a six-character seal mark in underglaze blue.

Bowls of this green and aubergine enamel design are known with the reign mark either written in three or two line format. An identical Kangxi bowl with the reign mark written in the same three line format as the present bowl, in the Helen and Peter Lin Collection, was included in the exhibition, Joined Colors, Decoration and Meaning in Chinese Porcelain, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., 1993, p. 91, no. 20. The same publication also illustrates another Kangxi bowl of this design from the same Helen and Peter Lin Collection with its reign mark written in a two line format, p. 90, no. 19.

Poly Auction. Colours Beyond Landscapes: Important Chinese Art including European and American Collections, Hong Kong, 14 July 2022