Lot 103. The Leshantang Collection. An extremely rare blue-ground yellow and green-enamelled incised 'dragon' bowl, Mark and period of Zhengde (1506-1521); 15.8 cm. Lot Sold 4,064,000 HKD (Estimate 600,000 - 800,000 HKD). © Sotheby's 2023

finely potted with rounded sides rising from a short foot to a flared rim, the exterior deftly painted with two ferocious five-clawed dragons pursuing flaming pearls amidst ruyi clouds, their sinuous bodies enamelled over the glaze in vivid yellow with the mane and whiskers highlighted in bright green, all reserved on an underglaze blue ground save for a simple yellow-band at the mouth and repeated at the foot, the interior left white and finely incised with two dragons surrounding a central medallion of a flaming pearl, the base inscribed with a four-character reign mark in underglaze-blue within a yellow-enamelled double circle.

Provenance: Eskenazi Ltd, London.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 26th November 1980, lot 242.
Collection of T.Y. Chao (1912-99).
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 18th November 1986, lot 54.

Literature: Zhongguo mingtao Riben xunhui zhan. Gangtai mingjia shoucang taoci jingpin [Exhibition of famous Chinese ceramics touring Japan. Fine ceramics from private Hong Kong and Taiwanese Collections], Museum of History, Taipei, 1992, p. 138.
Geng Baochang, Ming Qing ciqi jianding [Appraisal of Ming and Qing porcelain], Hong Kong, 1993, p. 121 and col. pl. 52.
Sotheby's Hong Kong – Twenty Years, 1973-1993, Hong Kong, 1993, pl. 163.
The Leshantang Collection of Chinese Porcelain, Taipei, 2005, pl. 20.
Giuseppe Eskenazi in collaboration with Hajni Elias, A Dealer's Hand: The Chinese Art World Through the Eyes of Giuseppe Eskenazi, London, 2012, Chinese version, Shanghai, 2015, pl. 380.

Exhibited: Chūgoku meitō ten: Chūgoku tōji 2000-nen no seika [Exhibition of important Chinese ceramics: Essence of two thousand years of Chinese ceramics], Nihonbashi Takashimaya, Tokyo, and six other locations in Japan, 1992, cat. no. 86.
Ching Wan Society Millennium Exhibition, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 2000, cat. no. 90.

Note: stensibly the only surviving bowl of its kind, this unique bowl is a pleasant surprise from the Zhengde court, representing the court's rare forays at creativity and originality, and a delectable departure from derivative designs commonly amassed in the Jingdezhen imperial kilns during the brief reign of Zhengde (r. 1506-21). The majority of Zhengde porcelain pieces were produced as stylistic continuations of previous reigns (see lots 103 and 138, for instance), the phenomenon of which has often been attributed to a lack of strong imperial patronage. Nonetheless, the Zhengde court was able to expand the repertoire of forms and designs, resulting in a small number of highly unusual and innovative pieces that are unrivalled in its distinctiveness. The present bowl is a rare specimen of such creations, made exclusively during the Zhengde reign and appears to be produced in a very small quantity, with discovered archaeological comparables being few and far between.

Of the rare excavated examples, its peers exist merely in the form of shards rather than a complete piece. See a blue and white reserve-decorated bowl of this design, reconstructed from shards excavated in 1987 from the imperial kiln site at Jingdezhen, illustrated in Imperial Porcelains from the Reign of Hongzhi and Zhengde in the Ming Dynasty, vol. 2, Beijing, 2017, pl. 191. The stark absence of a double circle around the reign mark on the reconstructed bowl suggests it is very likely an unfinished piece and meant to have additional enamelling after the first firing, plausibly with the present bowl in mind.

This blue-ground yellow-dragon design had not been further explored after the Zhengde reign, perhaps due to the painstaking production processes involved. It would require craftsmen to meticulously incise the dragon-and-flaming pearl design onto the interior of the bowl, then outline the dragons in cobalt on the outside and carefully fill in the negative space. After the first firing, enamel artists would apply yellow and green enamelled details before sending the bowl for a second firing at a lower temperature. Every step has to be done with great attention and precision; any slight failure would cause the destruction of the entire bowl, which possibly had happened with this piece's lesser example, hence it was discarded after the first firing.

Similar yet simplified designs emerged a dynasty later during the celebrated reigns of the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong. See a Yongzheng example illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Miscellaneous Enamelled Porcelains and Plain Tricolour Porcelains, Shanghai, 2009, pl. 64, which harkens back to the Zhengde endeavours with the blue-ground yellow-dragon design.

The fact that the unique bowl survives after five centuries is truly remarkable; if not for this bowl, we may never have discovered the intended appearance of the excavated examples, and these pieces would remain shrouded in mystery. This paragon first appeared on the market in 1980 and was lauded as the 5th highest-priced artwork in the sale, subsequently entering the famed T.Y. Chao Collection and eventually released in the 1986 sale - a sale which remains in the zeitgeist of Chinese Art connoisseurs. Since then, the piece has been retained in the illustrious Leshantang Collection for nearly four decades, which allured the attention of rapt collectors in passing via select exhibitions.