Lot 2811. A green and yellow-enamelled ‘cranes’ bowl, Yongzheng six-character mark in underglaze blue within double circles and of the period (1723-1735); 5 7/8 in. (15 cm.) diam. Estimate HKD 500,000 - HKD 700,000. Price realised HKD 1,250,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2017

The exterior is finely incised with a frieze of eight cranes in flight, their bodies enamelled in white with details picked out in black, with a red crest on their heads, interspersed by billowing clouds above crested waves and rocks encircling the base, the details highlighted in bright green enamels reserved on a rich yellow ground, extending across to the interior.

Provenance: Frank Caro, successor to C.T. Loo, New York, 1960s

Exhibited: San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas, 1984-2017

Note: Compare with other Yongzheng-marked examples of this pattern and size, one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Porcelains with Cloisonné Enamel Decoration and Famille Rose Decoration, Hong Kong, 1999, pp. 96-97, no. 84; another in the Baur collection, published in John Ayers, Chinese Ceramics in the Baur Collection, vol. 2, Geneva, 2000, p. 83, no. 204[A542]; a third in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is illustrated in A Handbook to the W.G. Gulland Bequest of Chinese Porcelain, London, 1950, no. VI(a); a fourth formerly in the Malcolm MacDonald collection and now in the Gulbenkian Museum of Oriental Art and Archaeology, University of Durham, illustrated by Legeza, Catalogue, London, 1972, pl. CXXV, no. 332; and a fifth from the Warre Collection, illustrated by R.L. Hobson, The Later Ceramic Wares of China, London, 1925, pl. LIX, fig. 3. 

 Porcelain bowl, green clouds and white cranes painted in coloured enamels on yellow ground, Yongzheng mark and period (1723-1735). Height: 6.5 cm, Diameter: 15 cm. Given by Mrs Julia C. Gulland, 611-1907 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London