24A FINE AND VERY RARE BLUE AND WHITE 'FRUIT' BOWL

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

Details

24A FINE AND VERY RARE BLUE AND WHITE 'FRUIT' BOWL
YONGZHENG SIX-CHARACTER MARK AND OF THE PERIOD (1723-1735)

The bowl is potted with characteristic thick and well rounded sides, painted with cobalt of sapphire-blue tones on the exterior with mixed flower scrolls, the six blooms including lotus, peony, camellia and chrysanthemum, below a border of breaking waves around the rim, the foot encircled with classic scroll, the underglaze-blue with simulated 'heaped and piled' effect, the reign mark written in a single line in a double-rectangular frame beneath the mouth rim
11.5 in. (29.2 cm.) diam.

Provenance

The T.Y Chao Private and Family Trust Collections of Important Chinese Ceramics and Jade Carvings, Part II, sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 19 May 1987, lot 273.
The T. T. Tsui Collection

Exhibited

Chinese University of Hong Kong, Ch'ing Porcelain from the Wah Kwong Collection, 1973, Catalogue no. 64

Hong Kong O.C.S. Exhibition of Chinese Blue and White Porcelain, City Museum and Art Gallery, 1975, Catalogue no. 106

Hong Kong Museum of Art, Ming and Ch'ing Porcelain from the Collection of T.Y. Chao Family Foundation, 1978, Catalogue no. 82

Lot Essay

It is very unusual to find a Yongzheng bowl of this type painted with a variety of flowers around the sides and with naturalistic wave and classic scroll borders closely following Ming designs.

For the inspiration of this design with thickly potted bowls of the Ming dynasty Xuande period, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Blue-and-White Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Book II, Part 2, CAFA, 1963, p. 120, pl. 41, decorated with a peony scroll; p. 122, pl. 44, with a lingzhi scroll; and p. 124, pl. 46, a lotus scroll. Compare also a Xuande-marked bowl with a lotus scroll on the exterior, offered in the Important Ceramics and Works of Art sale, Christie's Hong Kong, 27 May 2008, lot 1847.

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