XUANDE SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE WITHIN A DOUBLE CIRCLE AND OF THE PERIOD (1426-1435)

This is one of the most elegant bowl designs made at the imperial kilns in the Xuande reign. A bowl of the same size with exactly the same decoration as the Falk bowl is in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, and is illustrated in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Selected Hsüan-te Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1998, pp. 176-7, no. 61. One of these bowls is also in the collection of the Shanghai Museum and is illustrated by Wang Qingzheng in Underglaze Blue and Red, Hong Kong, 1993, p. 88, no. 61. Another Xuande bowl of the same size is in the collection of the Percival David Foundation, illustrated by R. Scott in Elegant Form and Harmonious Decoration - Four Dynasties of Jingdezhen Porcelain, Singapore, 1992, p. 45, no. 34. It is interesting to note that these bowls were so admired by the Qianlong emperor that he had close copies made at the imperial kilns during his reign, as shown by the Qianlong example in the Percival David Foundation, illustrated in Elegant Form and Harmonious Decoration, p. 147, no. 168.

A larger bowl of the same proportions with the same scrolling peony band in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Blue and White Porcelain with Underglaze Red (I), Hong Kong, 2000, p. 153, no. 145. The Palace bowl, however, has lotus petals around the base and a blackberry lily scroll around the foot. Another of these larger bowls is in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, and illustrated in Porcelain of the National Palace Museum - Blue-and-White Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Book II part 2, Hong Kong, 1963, pp. 120-1, pl. 41, while a further large bowl, with flowerheads on the foot, from the National Palace Museum, is illustrated in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Selected Hsüan-te Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, op.cit., pp. 152-3, no. 49.