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Lot Essay
The present lot is stylistically more elegant than the porcelain examples noted below, and this coupled with the high quality of craftmanship suggests that the bowls were carved by a leading workshop of the period, if indeed they were not produced in the Palace workshop. Compare a group of blue and white bowls with four evenly spaced roundels each enclosing an auspicious character reserved on a ground of lotus meander and Buddist emblems above similar lotus lappet borders around the base. Such an example was sold in these Rooms, 10 June 1991, lot 175; a saucer dish painted in a similar pattern, dated 1786, is illustrated by Sir H. Garner, Oriental Blue and White, p.50, fig.79b. Compare also a famille rose bowl with highly stylised lotus scrolls interspersed between the four medallions, an example of which sold in the Hong Kong Rooms, 8 October 1990, lot 524.