Lot 48. A café-au-lait-glazed shallow bowl, Qianlong seal mark and of the period (1736-1795); 17.1cm (6 3/4in) diam. (2). Sold for HKD 178,500 (Estimate HKD 150,000 - HKD 200,000). © Bonhams 2001-2022

The rounded sides rising from the shallow foot to a slightly flared rim and encircled by a double bow-string band, covered inside and out with a slightly iridescent glaze of reddish-brown tone, the base glazed white and the footrim unglazed, fitted box.

Provenance: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 3 October 2018, lot 3644
A distinguished Asian private collection.

Note: The café-au-lait glaze was mentioned on a stele inscribed by Tang Yin as one of the 57 glaze innovations introduced under his supervision, see Zhang Faying ed., Tang Ying du tao wendang [Archive on Tang Ying's Supervision of the Imperial Kilns], Beijing, 2012, p.5. It is unusual to find a bowl of this type with a Qianlong mark, but one in the collection of the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, is illustrated by He Li, Chinese Ceramics, A New Comprehensive Survey, New York, 1996, p.284, no.565.

For a Kangxi precursor of this Qianlong example see the bowl in the Percival David Foundation, illustrated by W.Ming in Rare Marks on Chinese Ceramics, London, 1998, pp.32-33, no.6. The eight-character mark on the base may be translated, 'made for the Zhonghe Pavilion in the renzi year of Kangxi', corresponding to 1672. Yongzheng-marked examples are represented by one illustrated in Old Oriental Ceramics Donated by Mr. Yokogawa, Tokyo National Museum, 1953, pl.389; and another included in the exhibition, Chinese Antiquities from the Brian S. McElney Collection, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1987, no.100.

Compare two bowls of this type sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong: the first on 21 September 2021, lot 137 and the second on 30th November 2018, lot 745.

Bonhams. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART, Hong Kong, 30 November 2022