Lot 8099. An Yixing pottery gu-form vase, Chen Mingyuan mark; 7 1/4in (18.4cm) high. Sold for US$ 40,000 (€35,800). Photo: Bonhams

The mottled tan sandy clay crisply potted in five-cornered foliate section in a tall trumpet-form mouth above a central collar encircling the thin waist surmounting the short flared foot all raised upon a circular foot ring surrounding the impressed three-character zhuanshumark, with fitted wood stand and wood storage box.  

Note: The ceramicist Chen Mingyuan is generally accepted to have been active in the early Qing period. Per Terese Tse Bartholomew in The Art of the Yixing Potter: the K.S. Lo Collection, Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware (Hong Kong: the Urban Council, 1990), Chen 'was well known for his technical virtuosity and creativity' with works in various styles in addition to 'containers in the form of archaistic bronze vessels' like the present lot (p 45). 

Bartholomew's more recent scholarship however has further elucidated the role of high quality homages to the work of Chen Mingyuan made in Shanghai during the 20th century. See the catalog to the exhibition of Yixing works in the Bei Shan Tang Collection recently held at the City University of Hong Kong, Lai Suk Yee and Bartholomew, The Bei Shan Legacy: Yixing Zisha Stoneware [Beishan Jigu: Yixing Zisha] (Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2015). 

Notable are the works of Pei Shimin (1892-1977)-- per Bartholomew, due to his renown in creating these 'Shanghai Masterpieces,' Pei became widely known as 'Chen Mingyuan the second.' A gu-form vase extremely similar to the present lot forms the central focus of a photo of a large group of masterworks made by Pei included in the catalog (ibid p.60).  

Bonhams Hong Kong has offered a number of these archaistic form containers with Chen Mingyuan marks, see examples from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Jimmy Sha: numbers 547, 550, 551, and 556 in Bonhams Hong Kong sale 20489 of 27 May 2012.