A superb Chinese celadon glazed bowl, Yongle-Xuande period (1402-1435), Longquan kilns, Zhejiang Province, 20.5 cm diameter. Japanese wood box, lacquer cover. POA © Marchant 

Formerly in an important Japanese private collection of a brewing family in the Kansai province.

Purchased from Hata, Kobe.

A similar bowl from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Jack Chia is illustrated by Julian Thompson in “Chinese Celadons, the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Jack Chia”, Arts of Asia, November-December 1993, fig. 18, p. 70, and was then sold by Sotheby’s Hong Kong in their auction of An Important Private Collection of Chinese Celadons and Other Ceramics, 5th November 1996, lot 634, estimate 4-500,000, sold HKD $450,000, where it notes another similar bowl in the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo is illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1987, pl. 604.

A related bowl with a flared rim, also with key-fret on the foot rim and similarly fired on a single iron-red burnt ring on the base, in the Palace Museum, Beijing is illustrated by Wangyao and Qionghua in Longquan of the World: Longquan Celadon and Globalisation, vol II, no. 164, p. 282; a larger bowl of similar deep form carved with flowers on both the interior and exterior is illustrated by Regina Krahl and John Ayers in Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum Istanbul, Vol. I, no. 487, colour p. 230, and p. 358, where it notes the bowl was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts 1935-36.

The form and quality of this bowl is typical of the Yongle/Xuande period.