The bowl is finely enamelled on the exterior of the deep rounded sides with four fruiting branches including lychees, peaches and persimmons within ogival-form cartouches. Each of the cartouches is divided by two stylised floral sprays, all within underglaze-blue double lines under the everted mouth rim and around the short foot ring. The interior is similarly enamelled with a fruiting pomegranate branch within a double-circle border medallion in the well, box.

Property of the Yiqingge Collection. 

Provenance: A private collection, St. Etienne, France 

Note: The present bowl is of an unusually large size and appears to be a very rare example of Wanli period bowls made in reverence to earlier Chenghua period ceramics decorated in the doucai technique. Compare to four published Wanli-marked examples of this same size and design. The first bowl is in the collection the National Palace Museum, illustrated in Enamelled Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Book III, CAFA, 1966, pls. 12a-b. The second bowl is in the Tokyo National Museum Collection, illustrated in Seikai Toji Zenshu, Ming Dynasty, vol. 14, Shokakukan, 1976, p.111; and the third from the Grandidier Collection and now in the Musée Guimet, is illustrated in The Word's Great Collections, Oriental Ceramics, vol. 7, Kodansha series, 1981, no. 88. The fourth bowl is illustrated by von L. Reidemeister, Ming-Porzellane in Schwedischen Sammlungen, Berlin und Leipzig, 1935, pl. 48. 

Bowl, Ming dynasty, Wanli reign (1573-1620), Jindezhen kilns, ; 22,9 cm, TG-2544, Tokyo National Museum Collection 

Bol à décor de fleurs et de fruits, Dynastie Ming, marque et période Wanli (1573-1620), Chine, Jiangxi, Jingdezhen. Porcelaine Doucai. H. : 11,5 cm ; D. : 22 cm ; D. base : 8,6 cm. Collection Ernest Grandidier, G 1351 © Réunion des musées nationaux