Lot 3157. A blue and white 'Lotus' Bowl. Mark and period of Xuande (1426-1435); 17.5 cm., 6 7/8 in. Estimation 1,500,000-2,000,000 HKD (146,787 — 195,716 EUR). Lot vendu: 1,580,000 HKD (154,615 EUR). Photo Sotheby's

finely potted with rounded sides rising from a slightly tapered foot and flaring delicately at the rim, well painted overall in deep tones of cobalt-blue with characteristic 'heaping and piling', the interior decorated with a central medallion of lotus amid leafy scrolls within a double-line border, encircled by a composite floral scroll around the cavetto and a band of florets at the rim, the exterior decorated with five lotus scrolling between upward lappets and stylized scroll around the foot and a key-fret border at the rim, the slightly domed base inscribed with the six-character reign mark within double circles. 

PROVENANCE: A Japanese collection.
Christie's Hong Kong, 1st December 2009, lot 1873.

NOTE: Closely related bowls can be found in several major museum collections; for example, see one in the Jingdezhen Ceramic Museum, Jingdezhen, illustrated in Keitokuchin jiki, Kyoto, 1982, pl. 40 (top); one from the Sir Percival David collection and now in the British Museum, London, included in R.L. Hobson, A Catalogue of Chinese Pottery and Porcelain in the Collection of Sir Percival David Bt., FSA., London, 1934, pl. CXXXIV (d), one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, published in Ming chu qinghua ci, vol. 2, Beijing, 2002, pl. 148, together with a Yongle prototype, ibid., vol. 1, pl. 55, and another in the British Museum, London, illustrated in John Ayers, the Seligman Collection of Oriental Art, London, 1964, pl. LXXI. See also a bowl sold in these rooms, 5th November 1997, lot 1367; another sold in our London rooms, 16th June 1999, lot 790; and a third bowl sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 27th May 2008, lot 1846. 

A large unmarked bowl of this design, excavated from the late Yongle stratum in at the waste heaps of the Ming imperial kilns at Zhushan in Jingdezhen, was included in the exhibition Imperial Porcelain of the Yongle and Xuande Periods, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1989, cat. no. 44

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art. Hong Kong | 04 avr. 2012