The floral-shaped bowl with flaring sides on a short, tapering foot ring, covered overall in a crackled bluish-grey glaze stopping neatly above the dark-grey foot rim.

Provenance: Garfield McNamara, California.

Note: Compare with a similar bowl from the E.T. Hall Collection sold at Christie's London, 7 June 2004, lot 138; and with a smaller floral cup illustrated in Monochrome Porcelain, The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1999, p. 24.

Both the shape and glaze on this piece follow Song dynasty Guanyaoprototypes very closely. Compare a floral-shaped Guanyao cup of very similar form in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Kuan Ware of the Southern Sung Dynasty, Hong Kong, 1962, Book II, p. 61, pl. 26.