Lot 2179. A rare simulated gold and silver-inlaid bronze tripod bowl, Qianlong relief-carved seal mark and of the period (1736-1795); 10¼ in. (26.2 cm.) wide. Estimate USD 200,000 - USD 300,000. Price Realized USD 845,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2014. 

The bowl, which is raised on three ram's head supports, has a compressed body molded around the sides with twenty-four lotus petals, and a wide, everted rim with raised, petal-barbed outer edge. The tripod bowl is covered overall with a rich café-au-lait glaze, and is finely decorated in imitation of gold and silver inlay with a yinyang emblem in the center of the interior, elaborate pendent scrolls on the petal-barbed rim, and linear details on the lotus petals and ram's head supports. The surface is lightly sprinkled allover with gold powder, including the base, which is centered by the seal mark.

Provenance: Chait Galleries, New York, before 1973.

Note: This rare vessel was made in imitation of gilt-splashed and gold and silver-inlaid bronze censers, and is representative of the taste of the Yongzheng and Qianlong Emperors for porcelains made to simulate other materials. A very similar tripod bowl in the Wang Xing Lou Collection is illustrated in Imperial Perfection: The Palace Porcelain of Three Chinese Emperors, Hong Kong, 2004, pp. 112-15, no. 40, where the use of tripod bowls of this type is discussed. They were variously used as censers, bulb bowls, flowerpot stands, and brush washers. Another almost identical example, previously in the W. Martin Hurst and W.W. Winkworth Collections, was sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 17 May 1988, lot 89.

A smaller imitation gold-splashed bronze tripod bowl of similar shape, which also has ram's head supports, is illustrated by J. Ayers in Chinese Ceramics in the Baur Collection, vol. 2, Geneva, 1999, pl. 254. A larger bowl with gold decoration on a teadust ground, also with lotus-petal decoration, in the Imperial Collection and now in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is included in Illustrated catalogue of Ch'ing Dynasty Porcelain, Ch'ien-lung Ware and Other Wares, Tokyo, 1981, pl. 78.

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, New York, 20 - 21 March 2014