Lot 104. A rare aubergine-glazed bowl, Kangxi mark and period (1662-1722); Diameter 5 in., 12.5 cm. Estimate: 40,000 - 60,000 USD. (C) 2020 Sotheby's

the deep rounded sides supported on a straight foot and rising to an elegantly everted rim, glazed overall in a rich translucent purplish-indigo stopping just above the foot, draining evenly from the rim and pooling to a deeper tone at the well, the recessed base glazed white and inscribed with a six-character mark in underglaze blue within a double circle.

Provenance: Collection of Dr. Herman Lindberg.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 28th November 1978, lot 142.

Literature: Jan Wirgin, K’ang-Hsi Porcelain: Selected Objects from Swedish Collections, Stockholm, 1974, pl. 49:a.

Exhibited: K'ang-Hsi Porcelain, Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, 1973.

Note: A pair of similar bowls formerly in the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, E.G. Kostolany, H.M. Knight and E.T. Hall Collections sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 2nd May 2000, lot 522. See also two pairs sold at Christie's Hong Kong: 17th January 1989, lot 795, and 30th October 2001, lot 792.

Compare similarly glazed bowls, but each with a straight lip: one from the Baur Collection was exhibited in A Millennium of Monochromes: From the Great Tang to the High Qing. The Baur and the Zhuyuetang Collections, The Baur Foundation, Geneva, 2018, cat. no. 106. Another was included in Splendour of the Qing Dynasty, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1992, cat. no. 222, and a pair from the Pei Shan Tang Collection was exhibited in Monochrome Ceramics of Ming and Ch’ing Dynasties, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1977, cat. no28.

Herman Lindberg was a Swedish physician who donated part of his Chinese art collection to the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm in 1990. He inherited his love of Chinese art from his father, Gustaf Lindberg (1887-1961). The elder Lindberg, a peer of fellow connoisseurs King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden and Carl Kempe, also wrote on his and Kempe's collections of Chinese ceramics.

Sotheby's. Kangxi Porcelain - A Private Collection. Live Auction: 22 September 2020 • 3:00 PM CEST • New York.