Lot 21. A Very Fine and Rare blue and White 'Lotus' (lianzi) Bowl, Ming Dynasty, Yongle Period (1402-1424); 10.2 cm, 4 in. Estimate 5,400,000 - 7,000,000 HKD (533,167 — 691,142 EUR). Lot sold 6,640,000 HKD (655,598 EUR). Courtesy Sotheby's

finely potted in the shape of a lotus bud (lianzi), the steep rounded sides and pointed base supported on a small cylindrical foot, delicately painted in deep tones of cobalt accented with 'heaping and piling', the interior with a central medallion enclosing a quatrefoil formal motif within a border of key-fret and trefoil strapwork around the sides, all below a 'classic' scroll at the rim, the exterior with a band of slender lotus petals overlapping bulb-shaped motifs of thin scrollwork, set between a key-fret border at the rim and a simplified key-fret around the foot, the base glazed

LITTERATURE: Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4, no. 1645.

NOTE: The formal non-representational patterns on this bowl and the related Xuande bowl, lot 22, would seem to be inspired by Middle Eastern designs, although no clear prototype has so far been identified. A similar bowl filled with pears has been given pride of place next to a Madonna and Child in an Italian painting attributed to Francesco Benaglio (1432 - c.1492), believed to date from the 1460s; see A.I. Spriggs, ‘Oriental Porcelain in Western Paintings’, Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 36, 1964-6, pl. 57, where it is compared with two similar bowls from the British Museum, London, one unmarked like the present piece, the other of Xuande mark and period. Yongle and Xuande examples of this design are also compared in A D. Brankston, Early Ming Wares of Chingtechen, Beijing, 1938, pls. 3 a and b, and 7 a and b.

Two bowls of this design from the Qing court collection in the Palace Museum, Beijing, are illustrated in Geng Baochang, ed., Gugong Bowuyuan cang Ming chu qinghua ci [Early Ming blue-and-white porcelain in the Palace Museum], Beijing, 2002, vol. 1, pls. 63 and 64; another in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, was included in the exhibition Mingdai chunian ciqi tezhan mulu/Catalogue of a Special Exhibition of Early Ming Period Porcelain, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1982, cat. no. 25; for an example of Xuande mark and period in the same museum, see Mingdai Xuande guanyao jinghua tezhan tulu/Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Selected Hsüan-te Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1998, cat. no. 160.

A similar bowl from the collection of Wu Lai Hsi was sold in our London rooms 26th May 1937, lot 11; and one from the George Eumorfopoulos collection, 29th May 1940, lot 221, and again at Christie’s London, 25th June 1974, lot 86, from the collection of Frederick M. Mayer.

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection, Part V - An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains. Hong Kong | 08 avr. 2013