Lot 5073. From the Ise Collection A rare kinrande gilt-decorated iron-red 'peony' stem cup, Ming dynasty, 16th century; h. 11 cm; d. 13.4 cm. Lot sold 270,400 HKD (Estimate 250,000-500,000 HKD). © Sotheby's 2025

he wide hemispherical bowl resting on a tubular stem slightly splaying towards the base, the exterior enamelled with a deep iron-red enamel and finely applied in the kinrande style with four large peony blooms depicted in silhouette with details incised with a fine point through the gold leaf to appear in red, evenly spaced within a dense foliage above a border of petal lappets, now rubbed, the interior of the bowl and of the stem left white, Japanese wood box.

Provenance: Watanabe & Co., Ltd, Tokyo.

Literature: Christian Boehm, 'A Tea Master's Vision: Chinese Ceramics from the Ise Collection', Arts of Asiz, July-August 2018, fig. 27.

Exhibited:Shika Meisai: Ise Korekushon no Meito / Imperial Colors: Peerless Chinese Porcelains from the Ise Collection, Gotoh Museum, Tokyo, 2015, cat. no. 13.

Porcelaine. Chefs-d'œuvre de la Collection Ise, Musée Guimet, Paris, 2017, cat. no. 43.

Ise Korekushon Sekai wo Miryoshita Chugokutoji / The Enchanting Chinese Ceramics from the Ise Collection, Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, 2017, cat. no. 55.

Note: Kinrande (‘gold brocade work’) is a Japanese term for silhouette decoration applied in leaf gold, which was practised for a short period in the Jiajing reign. The fluid designs are created through application of a liquid adhesive with a brush, to which the leaf gold would adhere. Details are then incised through the gold. Kinrande porcelains were particularly treasured in Japan, but were also the pride of early Kunstkammer collections throughout Europe, often lavishly adorned with precious metal mounts; see the exhibition catalogue Encompassing the Globe. Portugal and the World in the 16th and 17th Centuries, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C., 2007, cat. nos P 64-6.

Kinrande stem bowls are very rare. A similar piece, with the gold much rubbed, is in the British Museum, London, from the Harry Oppenheim collection, see Jessica Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, no. 9: 68; another from the Manno Art Museum Collection was sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 28th October 2002, lot 547, later entered the Meiyintang Collection.

Sotheby's. Masterpieces of Chinese Ceramics from the Ise Collection, Hong Kong, 9 September 2025