Lot 40. A famille-rose 'landscape' bowl, Qianlong seal mark and period (1736-1795); 18.4cm., 7 ¼in. Estimate 15,000 — 20,000 GBP. Lot sold 134,500 GBP. Photo Sotheby’s

with deep rounded sides rising from a slightly tapered foot to an everted rim, painted around the exterior with a continuous landscape depicting a large walled compound of storeyed pavilions built on a lake island surrounded by green and turquoise cliffs and arbored with lofty pines and wutong trees, with distant figures standing on the grassy banks or crossing over an arched bridge, all below wispy clouds and misty mountains in the far distance, the interior similarly painted in the centre with a cottage on a shore below willow trees among turquoise blue and green mountains, the base inscribed in underglaze blue with a six-character seal mark.

Provenance: Collection of Henrik V. Jacobsen, General Director of East Asiatic Company.

Note: Idealised landscapes encircling the exterior of a bowl, similar to a painting on an unrolled handscroll, are rarely found on Qianlong porcelain. Such continuous paintings commanded not only accomplished brushwork but also particular skill at composition. No other related bowl appears to have been published, although a set of ten nested bowls with straight sides and each bearing a Qianlong reign mark and of the period was offered in our Hong Kong rooms, 27th April 1993, lot 219. Compare Jiaqing (1796-1820) mark and period bowls similarly depicting landscapes, the interior rim encircled with an iron red band of ruyi heads and roundel in the centre, such as one sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 22nd May 1986, lot 353; and a pair sold in these rooms, 18thJune 1985, lot 198.