Lot 1. The Au Bak Ling Collection. A Longquan celadon mallow-form dish, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279); 15.9 cm. diam. Price realised HKD 3,024,000 (Estimate HKD 1,000,000 – HKD 1,500,000). © Christie's Images Ltd 2024.

The dish is finely potted with deep flared sides rising to an everted, hexa-lobed rim, and is covered overall in a luminous bluish-green glaze suffused with brown crackles, leaving the foot unglazed, revealing the greyish biscuit body.

Provenance: Sold at Christie’s London, 10 December 1990, lot 114A
Sold at Sotheby’s New York, Harmony of Form, Serenity of Color: A Private Collection of Song Ceramics, 23 March 2011, lot 510.

Note: The present dish is a beautiful and successful example made by the Longquan kilns located in Zhejiang during the Southern Song dynasty, in imitation of the contemporary Xiuneisi Guan wares, which were produced in Hangzhou exclusively for the Southern Song imperial court. A Xiuneisi Guan dish of similar form, bluish-green glaze, and wide russet crackles is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Sung Dynasty Kuan Ware, Taipei, 1989, no. 99.

Southern Song Longquan mallow-form dishes are quite rare. Compare the present dish with a similar example without crackles in a Japanese private collection, illustrated in Longquan Ware: Chinese Celadon Beloved of the Japanese, Yamaguchi, 2012, no. 53; and one with narrow glaze crackles discovered at Simaqiao, Chengdu, illustrated in Cerâmicas Celadon de Longquan, Macau, 1998, pp. 112-113.

Christie's. The Au Bak Ling Collection: The Inaugural Sale, Hong Kong, 26 September 2024