Lot 3710. A doucai 'Eight daoist emblems' bowl, mark and period of Yongzheng (1723-1735);  15.3 cm., 6 in. Estimate  250,000 — 350,000 HKD (28,739 — 40,235 EUR). Lot sold 562,500 HKD (64,663 EUR). Photo Sotheby's.

thinly potted with flared sides rounding from a short footring, the exterior finely painted with the eight emblems of the Daoist immortals, each tied with fluttering ribbons alternately coloured in green and iron-red, all between a band of brightly coloured ruyi heads encircling the base and a narrow band of interlocking 'C'-shaped motifs in underglaze-blue around the mouthrim, the interior centred with a medallion enclosing a spray of peaches within a double-circle repeated at the rim, the recessed base inscribed in underglaze blue with a six-character reign mark within a double-circle.

Provenance: Sotheby's London, 13th June 1989, lot 283.
Christie’s Hong Kong, 1st-3rd May 1994, lot 691.

Note: A pair of Yongzheng bowls of this design from the T.Y. Chao collection was included in the exhibition Ch'ing Porcelain from the Wah Kwong Collection, The Art Gallery, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1973, cat. no. 89. Compare also a doucai bowl illustrated in The Tsui Museum of Art. Chinese Ceramics IV, Qing Dynasty, Hong Kong, 1995, pl. 139; and two other examples sold in these rooms, 30th October 2000, lot 164 and 31st October 2004, lot 108.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, Hong Kong, 07 oct. 2015