NORTHERN SONG DYNASTY, 11TH-12TH CENTURY

The design of this bowl is known as luohua liushui (fallen flower and floating stream) as described in the Southern Tang Emperor Li Yu's poem. A Yaozhou bowl with this well-known design in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in Porcelain of the Song Dynasty (I), The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1996, p. 120, no. 106. Other Yaozhou bowls carved with this design are in The Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, illustrated in The Masterpieces of Yaozhou Ware, Osaka, 1997, p. 53, no. 67, and in the Percival David Foundation, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics: The World's Great Collections, vol. 7, Tokyo, 1976, col. pl. 18. Compare also a pair of Yaozhou bowls with the same motif from the Linyushanren Collection, sold at Christie's Hong Kong, The Classic Age of Chinese Ceramics: The Linyushanren Colelction, Part I, 2 December 2015, lot 2801.