A FINE AND EXCEPTIONALLY RARE EARLY MING BLUE AND WHITE 'THREE FRIENDS' BOWL

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A FINE AND EXCEPTIONALLY RARE EARLY MING BLUE AND WHITE 'THREE FRIENDS' BOWL
YONGLE PERIOD (1403-1425)

Of gently flaring conical form, the exterior exquisitely painted in vivid shades of cobalt blue with the 'Three Friends of Winter', the entwined pine and flowering prunus branches rising above small clusters of bamboo issuing from the base, all between double line borders at the rim and triple lines encircling the ring foot, the interior and base covered in a transparent glaze
8 5/8 in. (22 cm.) diam., Japanese wood box

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Compare other published examples of this form decorated with the 'Three Friends of Winter' theme: a bowl in the Shanghai Museum collection, illustrated by Wang Qingzheng, Underglaze Blue & Red, Woods Publishing, 1987, no. 53; one from the Herbert Hoover collection, included in The Philadelphia 1949 Exhibition of Ming Blue-and-White, illustrated in the Catalogue, 1954, p. 30, no. 28; one in the Topkapi Saray Museum, illustrated by R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, vol. II, London, 1986, p. 424, no. 610; and a fourth illustrated by John Pope, Chinese Porcelain from the Ardebil Shrine, 1956, pl. 47, no. 29.330. Another Yongle bowl depicting the same subject was sold at Christie's London, 12 October 1970, lot 22.