Lot 5. A very fine and unusual iron-red bowl, Yongzheng mark and period (1723-1735); 13 cm., 5 1/8 in. Estiùate 2,000,000—3,000,000 HKD. Lot Sold 6,620,000 HKD. Photo Sotheby's 2011

thinly potted with wide sides issuing from a high splayed foot, the exterior decorated with branches of pomegranate, peach and lychee, the interior with two small bats, all executed with a fine brush and exquisitely shaded in tones of iron red, the base inscribed with a six-character reign mark.

Literature: Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 2, no. 785.

Note: With its exquisite brushwork and elegant, sparse painting, this bowl is an archetypal product of the Yongzheng period. Iron red was very rarely used on its own for painterly decoration on porcelain, which is surprising given the outstanding results it could yield, as this example documents.

Only one companion bowl appears to be recorded, from the H.M. Knight collection, included in the exhibition The Arts of the Ch'ing Dynasty, Oriental Ceramic Society, London, 1963, cat. no. 233, and sold twice in these rooms, 19th May 1982, lot 313, and 30th April 1996, lot 466.

SSotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection - An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains, 07 Apr 11, Hong Kong