Lot 3634. A superb Junyao purple-splashed bubble bowl, Northern Song dynasty (960-1127); 8.5 cm. Lot sold: 12,275,000 HKD (Estimate: 18,000,000 - 22,000,000 HKD). ©  2021 Sotheby's

with gently rounded sides rising from a short straight foot to a slightly incurved rim, applied overall with a very glossy milky blue glaze draining to a mushroom tone at the rim and pooling short of the foot, the interior decorated with two vibrant reddish-purple splashes, the exterior similarly decorated with two splashes of equal brilliance, the neatly pared footring revealing the buff body fired ash-grey.

With its ravishing purple-and-blue colour combination Jun wares from kilns in Yuxian in Henan are among the most daring creations in the history of Chinese ceramics, and certainly the most flamboyant of the major wares of the Song dynasty (960-1279); and among the various Jun ware shapes, these small bowls with their well-rounded forms that are begging to be picked up, are probably the most endearing. Every piece is a unique work of art, individual in its pattern and tonal variation, created as if by nature. On the present bowl from the Canton Collection the overall outcome is particularly attractive and successful.

An outstanding Junyao purple-splashed dish, Song dynasty (960-1279); 18.5 cm, formely in The Canton Collection. Sold for 26,795,000 HKD at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 22 april 2021, lot 16. ©  2021 Sotheby's

These small bowls, or wine cups, in the West known as ‘bubble bowls’, come in many variations, mostly with a predominance of blue, sometimes with a predominance of purple, and a small but distinctive group, to which this bowl belongs, with a more or less even distribution of blue and purple, with two or three clearly delineated dark patches both inside and outside. The present bowl has a memorable pattern of two splashes inside that seem to dance around each other in a swirling motion, suggestive of a yin-yang movement. The two purple patches on the exterior are so complex in form that different profile views of the bowl present totally different aspects, and the full effect reveals itself only when handling and turning the vessel.

The tendency of the blue glaze to run down the vessel left only a thin transparent layer of a contrasting grey-green on the rim, which beautifully defines the shape; but it required much experience from the potters to make it stop in a nicely undulating, glassy, blue-and-purple edge around the foot, rather than to run down further and to bake onto the firing support. A single dab of blue glaze on the basically unglazed base is a delightful touch to enliven the underside of the vessel.

In their appreciation of simplicity, asymmetry, abstraction, an inexpensive material, and a certain rustic quality, and their rejection of the usual aristocratic delight in expensive glitz and ornament, Song connoisseurs were exceptional in their taste – a taste we can easily relate to in the 21st century. The originality of Jun wares is still intriguing modern potters today and appears to have been admired by the Yongzheng Emperor (r. 1723-1735), one of China’s greatest imperial connoisseurs, to such a degree that the potters of the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen had to undertake exceptional efforts to copy and revive this ceramic style.

The secret of the blue Jun glaze has long escaped scrutiny but is now known to derive not from a pigment but from an optical illusion – not unlike the blue of the sky – as minute spherules of glass in the glaze are scattering blue light. The purplish red, created by applying a copper-rich solution to the blue glaze, which is difficult to control in the firing and thus not fully predictable in its outcome, made preconceived designs practically impossible, giving a chance to abstraction. The variable configuration of copper ‘clouds’ on the sky-blue Jun glaze is as fascinating as the ever new cloud formations appearing on a clear sky.

The Western term ‘bubble’ bowl is based on the fact that the glossy glaze on the inside can evoke the illusion of a soap bubble forming above the vessel’s rim, with lights seemingly reflected from the dome of the ‘bubble’ rather than the well of the bowl.

Although wares of Jun type were produced by many different manufactories in Henan, high-quality ‘bubble bowls’ such as this piece come from the Jun type site in the modern county of Yuxian, the former region of Junzhou, in Henan; see fragments from the kiln site, illustrated in Gugong Bowuyuan cang Zhongguo gudai yaozhi biaoben [Specimens from ancient Chinese kiln sites in the collection of the Palace Museum], vol. 1: Henan juan [Henan volume], Beijing, 2005, p. 481, no. 447, and a complete bowl in the Palace Museum, Beijing, p. 480, no. 446 bottom; the latter is published again, together with a second bowl in Jun ci ya ji. Gugong Bowuyuan zhencang ji chutu Junyao ciqi huicui/Selection of Jun Ware. The Palace Museum’s Collection and Archaeological Excavation, Palace Museum, Beijing, 2013, pls 35 and 36.

Two related ‘bubble’ bowls are also in the Baur Collection, illustrated in John Ayers, The Baur Collection Geneva: Chinese Ceramics, Geneva, 1968-74, vol. I, nos A 31 and A 32; and one is in the Sir Percival David collection in the British Museum, illustrated in Stacey Pierson, Song Ceramics: Objects of Admiration, London, 2003, pl. 20.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art including Imperial Jades from the De An Tang Collection, Hong Kong, 13 October 2021