Lot 101. An exceptional Longquan celadon conical bowl, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279); 14.5 cm, 5 5/8  in. Estimate 600,000 — 800,000 HKD. Lot sold 1,187,500 HKD.  Courtesy Sotheby's.

delicately potted with flaring sides supported on a short foot, evenly covered overall save for the footring with a soft bluish-green glaze gently pooling around the rim and the central circular groove on the interior, the edges of the glaze along the pale grey unglazed footring burnt brownish-orange.

Provenance: Collection of Herschel V. Johnson (1894-1966).
Sotheby's London, 21st February 1967, lot 21.
Collection of Col. and Mrs R.J.H. Carson.
Sotheby's London, 7th June 1994, lot 308.
Collection of Robert Barron.
Christie's New York, 30th March 2005, lot 317.

Exhibited: Heaven and Earth Seen Within: Song Ceramics from the Robert Barron Collection, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, 2000, cat. no. 56.

Note: Lonquan bowls of this pronounced shape are preserved in important museums and collections around the world, including one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, published in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Porcelain of the Song Dynasty II, Hong Kong, 1996, p. 152, no. 137; and another in the Percival David collection, illustrated in the Illustrated Catalogue of Celadon Wares in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, rev. ed. 1997, p. 29, no. 231. See also one sold in our New York rooms, 16th/17th September 2014, lot 112.

Sotheby's. Monochrome, Hong Kong, 11 July 2020