Provenance: Acquired from Edward T. Chow (1910-80) in the late 1960s.

Note: The present bowl belongs to a group of sweet white-glazed (tianbai) porcelain bowls favoured during the Yongle period. Its subtle combination of incised and anhua decoration on a beautifully potted lianzi (lotus-bud) shape manifested one of the most classic decorative repertoires in the early Ming dynasty. Anhua, 'hidden decoration', was practised almost exclusively at the beginning of the Ming dynasty, from the Hongwu to the Xuande period, and only at Jingdezhen.

Elegantly potted with deep rounded sides, the present bowl is faintly incised on the exterior with a neat row of well-defined lotus petals below a keyfret band, while the interior is superbly decorated in anhua with alternating chrysanthemum and camellia blooms below a border of crested waves. A closely related bowl from the Eumorfopoulos Collection was sold in our London rooms, 30th May 1940, lot 312; another two in these rooms, 8th October 2013, lot 215, and 8th April 2023, lot 3689, the latter formerly from the collection of Carl Kempe (1884-1967).

The incised and moulded decoration is echoed in blue and white porcelain of the same period, such as a bowl in the Eli Lilly collection, now in the Indianapolis Museum of Art, included in the exhibition, Ming Porcelains, A Retrospective, China Institute in America, New York, 1971, cat. no. 5. The Yongle Emperor is believed, however, to have preferred monochrome white wares, and blue and white counterparts of such bowls only became popular later during the Xuande period.

Sotheby's. An Important European Collection of Chinese Ceramics - Acquired from Edward T. Chow, Hong Kong, 9 April 2024