Lot 633. A fine blue-glazed stembowl, Yongzheng mark and period (1723-1735). Diameter 6 in., 15.3 cm. Estimate 30,000 — 50,000 USD. Lot Sold 37,500 USD. © Sotheby's. 

the rounded sides supported on a tall slightly splayed hollow stem, rising to a gently everted rim, the exterior covered in a vibrant blue stopping neatly below the rim and above the foot, the interior of the bowl and base glazed white, the inside of the stem inscribed with a horizontal six-character mark in underglaze blue.

Provenance: English Private Collection.
Sotheby's London, 10th November 2004, lot 658.

Literature: Karen Thomson, ed., The Blema and H. Arnold Steinberg Collection, Montreal, 2015, pl. 156.

Note: Cobalt-blue porcelains were associated with the Tiantan, Altar of Heaven, where they were used during imperial rituals. Unsurprisingly, such glazes are sometimes referred to as 'sacrificial blue‘ (jilan). 

Yongzheng blue-glazed stembowls of this size and form are in the British Museum and Musée Guimet, illustrated respectively in Albert Le Bonheur, Oriental Ceramics: The World's Great Collections, British Museum, vol. 5, Tokyo, 1981, pl. 233, and Oriental Ceramics: The World's Great Collections, Musée Guimet, vol. 7, Tokyo, 1981, pl. 165. Another example is illustrated in Ireneus László Legeza, A Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Malcolm MacDonald Collection of Chinese Ceramics, London, 1972, pl. CIII. 

See also one sold in our London rooms, 11th December 1990, lot 374, and another sold at Christie's London, 13th November 2001, lot 135.