Lot 802. An extremely rare and important imperial copper-red glazed moulded 'dragon' bowl, Ming dynasty, Hongwu period (1368-1398): 21 cm. Lot Sold 5,080,000 HKD (Estimate 3,000,000 - 6,000,000 HKD) © Sotheby's 2025
 

potted with deep rounded sides rising from a straight foot to an everted rim, the interior with a slightly recessed centre finely incised with an undulating ruyi cloud, encircled by two moulded five-clawed dragons pursuing each other around the cavetto and separated by clouds, the exterior incised with a band of petal lappets above the foot, applied overall with a subdued shade of copper-red, the glaze thinning to white at the rim, the base and footring left unglazed
 

Provenance: Collection of the Chang Foundation, Taipei.
 

Exhibited: Treasures from the Chang Foundation, National Museum of Chinese History, Beijing, 1996, cat. no. 5.
 

Note: The present bowl belongs to a rare and distinctive group of anhua dragon porcelains of the Hongwu period, representing the earliest emergence of imperial red wares intended for ceremonial use.
 

Copper-red has always been one of the most technically challenging glazes in the history of Chinese porcelain. Already attempted in the Yuan dynasty, the results were notoriously unpredictable. Copper-red glazes of the Hongwu period are instantly recognisable by their soft and mottled pinkish tones, a result of the variable reduction atmosphere in the kiln and the unpredictable behaviour of copper pigment at high temperatures, which contrasts with the brighter, scarlet tones perfected later under the Yongle and Xuande Emperors, as well as the deeper, browner reds often seen in preceding Yuan examples.
 

Wares of this type have previously been attributed to the late Yuan dynasty; however, fragments bearing this design were unearthed at the site of the Ming imperial palace in Nanjing. Discovered together with Hongwu blue-and-white and underglaze-red porcelains near the Jade Belt River (Yudaihe), which bordered the inner palace buildings, these finds suggest these pieces were imperial wares produced exclusively for the imperial family. Notably, a fragmentary bowl of about 20 cm diameter, comparable in size and similar to the present rare piece, was excavated from the Hongwu stratum of the imperial kiln sites, illustrated in Imperial Porcelains from the Reigns of Hongwu, Yongle in the Ming Dynasty: A Comparison of Porcelains from the Imperial Kiln Site at Jingdezhen and Imperial Collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, 2015, pl. 200.
 

Surviving examples of this rare design are exceptionally few. Only seven other copper-red bowls of this type appear to be recorded, all but one preserved today in major museum collections. It appears that they were produced in three size categories, of which the present piece represents the largest. With its generous 21 cm diameter, it appears to be the only complete extant example of this size known in private hands, the only other of comparable dimension being the aforementioned excavated fragment.
 

Smaller known examples include a bowl (16.5 cm) in the British Museum, London, from the Eumorfopoulos Collection, acc. no. 1936,1012.107; another (also 16.5 cm) in the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, from the Ataka Collection, illustrated in Ceramic Art of the World, vol. 13, 1981, col. pls 235-6. Two much smaller bowls (9.5 and 10 cm) are preserved in the Taipei Palace Museum, acc. nos guci 13216 and 13217; another (9.8 cm) in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, acc. no. C.138-1963; and one (10 cm) in the Cleveland Museum of Art, from the collections of V.W. Shriro, and Severance and Greta Millikin, acc. no. 1964.222; its companion bowl (also 10 cm and formerly in the V.W. Shriro Collection) was sold in our London rooms, 28th May 1963, lot 124.

Similar design can also be found on dishes and stem cups, as well as in other monochrome and bi-chrome glazes; see, for example, a blue-and-brown bi-chrome glazed bowl of comparable size, sold in these rooms, 9th October 2020, lot 46.