Lot 270. A pair of blue and white 'Crane and Trigram' bowls, Qianlong seal marks and period (1736-1795). Diameter 5 5/8  in., 14.2 cm. Estimate 20,000 — 30,000 USD. Lot sold 47,500 USD. Photo Sotheby's

each finely painted to the exterior with eight medallions each enclosing a trigram, divided by swooping cranes and ruyi-shaped clouds, above jagged rocks battered by crashing waves, the interior with a central medallion enclosing a floret within stylized rolling waves beneath a wide trellis diaper at the rim, the base with a six-character mark in underglaze blue (2).

Provenance: Beijing collector, acquired in the 1940s.
Gifted to a Canadian missionary family, China, 1970s and thence by descent.

Note: Compare two closely related Qianlong bowls, one sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 20th November 1985, lot 86, and another sold at Christie's Singapore, 30th March 1997, lot 224.

For a Ming dynasty prototype, see a Jiajing bowl with additional borders, illustrated in Sekai Toji Zenshu, vol. 11, fig. 29.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, New York, 13 sept. 2016, 10:30 AM