YUAN-EARLY MING DYNASTY

The present bowl belongs to a group of Jun vessels comprising narcissus bowls, flower pots, and zun-shaped vases with prominent flanges, where each vessel has been incised or stamped with a Chinese numeral on the base. The numbers range from one to ten, and according to the Nanyao biji (Notes of the Nanyao), composed during the Qianlong reign, the numbers are indications that pair specific flower pots with stands. In recent years, scholars have also noted that the numbers appear to have a directly proportional relationship with the sizes of the vessels, with ten representing the smallest and one, the largest. They were greatly admired by the 18^th-century emperors of the Qing dynasty, who displayed them in palace buildings and gardens, and included them in court paintings. The present bowl represents the highest quality of the ‘numbered’ Jun vessels, well-made and with exquisitely mottled purplish glaze on the exterior and opalescent blue glazed on the interior.

Jun narcissus bowls of this group appear in three styles. The first style has a circular mouth rim with drum-nail bosses on the exterior, such as the one from the Linyushanren Collection Part III, sold at Christie’s New York, 22 March 2018, lot 542 (‘number five’). The second style has a six-petal lobed rim. See the ‘number nine’ example in the National Palace Museum, illustrated in A Panorama of Ceramics in the Collection of the National Palace Museum: Chun Ware, Taipei, 1999, pp. 116-7, no. 41. And the third style, which include the current bowl, has six molded bracket lobes at the flattened rim, and includes the ‘number four’ bowl, also from the Linyushanren Collection, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 2 December 2015, lot 2812.