A FINE PAIR OF GREEN-ENAMELLED YELLOW-GROUND 'DRAGON' BOWLS
ANOTHER PROPERTY
A FINE PAIR OF GREEN-ENAMELLED YELLOW-GROUND 'DRAGON' BOWLS

Details
A FINE PAIR OF GREEN-ENAMELLED YELLOW-GROUND 'DRAGON' BOWLS
YONGZHENG SIX-CHARACTER MARKS WITHIN DOUBLE CIRCLES AND OF THE PERIOD (1723-1735)

Each with deep rounded sides rising to a slightly flared rim, finely incised and decorated with bright green enamel with a pair of sinuous, five-clawed dragons in mutual pursuit of 'flaming pearls', surrounded by wispy clouds and flames, below a band of conjoined ruyi-heads around the rim, all against an opaque lemon-yellow ground, the interior with a transparent glaze
5 1/2 in. (14 cm.) diam., box (2)
Provenance
The British Rail Pension Fund, sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 16 May 1989, lot 80

Lot Essay

Previously sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 29 November 1976, lot 578, and again, in these Rooms, The Imperial Sale, 29 April 2001, lot 605.

Several Yongzheng bowls of this pattern have been published: one previously from the Constantinidi Collection is illustrated by S. Jenyns, Later Chinese Porcelain, London, 1971, pl. LXIX, fig. 4; another example is illustrated by G. Lang, The Powell-Cotton Collection of Chinese Ceramics, England, 1988, no. 83; in Chinese Porcelain, The S. C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, Hong Kong, 1987, pl. 97; one was included in the Min Chiu Society exhibition, Splendours of the Qing Dynasty, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1992, and is illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 149; another from the collection of Lord Kitchener was included in the National Gallery of Victoria Exhibition of a Hundred Treasures, 1972, illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 116; and a pair was exhibited in the Hong Kong Museum of Art, Ming and Ch'ing Porcelain from the Collection of the T. Y. Chao Family Foundation, 1972, illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 72, and sold in these Rooms, 8 October 1990, lot 454. Other bowls of this design have been sold at auction, in our New York Rooms, a pair sold, 21 March 1997, lot 430; and a single bowl, 16 September 1998, lot 377.

More from The Imperial Sale

View All
View All