A 'Jizhou' inscribed bowl, Southern Song dynasty. Estimate 30,000 — 50,000 USD. Photo Sotheby's.

the interior decorated with three medallions enclosing the 'Three Friends of Winter', two with Chinese characters reading chun (Spring) and mei (plum), the third character indecipherable, all reserved in brown against the variegated, milky buff ground, the exterior covered in a 'tortoiseshell' glaze of dark brown color mottled in beige falling short of the knife-pared foot. Diameter 5 in., 12.7 cm

Literature: Chugoku meito ten: Chugoku toji 2000-nen no seika [Exhibition of Chinese Pottery: Two Thousand Years of Chinese Ceramics], Tokyo, 1992, no. 52.

Notes: This group of bowls with quatrefoil motifs enclosing auspicious phrases was popular throughout south China during the Southern Song period. It is unusual to find bowls of this type with three floral medallions enclosing a single character, and no other examples appear to have been published. Related bowls, each with three medallions but enclosing auspicious four-character phrases are in the Jiangxi Provincial Museum illustrated in Zhongguo taoci quanji [Complete series on Chinese Ceramics], Shanghai, 1999-2000, vol. 8, pl. 217; and another in Chugoku no toji. Temmoku, Tokyo, 1999, pl. 53.

Sotheby's. Song Tradition: Early Ceramics from the Yang De Tang Collection. New York, 17 mars 2015, 11:00 AM