Lot 3010. A rare blue and white ‘lotus’ dice bowl, Xuande six-character mark in underglaze blue in a line and of the period (1426-1435), 10.5 in. (26.7 cm.) diam., box. Estimate HKD 2,600,000 - HKD 3,500,000 (USD 335,375 - USD 451,466) © Christie’s Images Limited 2017.

The bowl is well potted with thick rounded sides, the exterior painted with a continuous band of undulating lotus meander bearing eight large blossoms and above a band of petal lappets rising from a foot ring encircled by a border of detached scrolling clouds between double-line borders.

Note: Compare to other examples of similar lotus scroll pattern in public and private collections, including two in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, one published in the Illustrated Catalogue of Ming Dynasty Porcelain, pl. 60, and the other in the Catalogue, Blue and White Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Book II, pt. II, pl. 46; one illustrated in Chinese Porcelain, The S.C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, pl. 25; one in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford illustrated in Sekai Toji Zenshu, Shogakukan Series, vol. 15, pl. 150; one in the Idemitsu Collection, illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1987, no. 171 and another from the J.M. Hu Collection, sold at Sotheby’s New York, 4 June 1985, lot 6. 

A bowl of this same pattern also with the floral scroll on the exterior foot ring, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is illustrated in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Selected Hsuan-te Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, Taipei, 1998, p. 151, 48.  

A number of similar thickly potted bowls variously decorated with flowers or composite flowers, borne on undulating vines, are published. Compare to two bowls designed with composite floral blooms included in the Philadelphia Museum of Art 1949, Exhibition of Ming Blue-and-White, illustrated in the Catalogue, pls. 60 and 62; and two other examples in the National Palace Museum, illustrated op cit., 1998, p. 145, no. 45, with lingzhi fungus scroll; and p. 153, no. 49, rose scrolls.

Christie's. The Imperial Sale / Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, 31 May 2017, Convention Hall, Hong Kong