KANGXI SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE WITHIN A DOUBLE CIRCLE AND OF THE PERIOD (1662-1722)

Three other Kangxi-marked bowls of this rare design are published. The first is in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, illustrated by Julian Thompson ‘Chinese Porcelain in the Collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales’, Orientations, September 2000, p. 100, figs. 7 and 7a (mark); one from the Frederick T. Fuller Collection, sold at Christie’s London, 28-29 June 1965; and the third was sold at Christie’s London, 6 November 2007, lot 172.
The form and design of these bowls follow closely a Xuande-marked example illustrated in Sekai Toji Zenshu: Ming, vol. 14, 1976, p. 166, no. 152, which has an additional band of upright lotus lappets above the foot. Compare, also, two other Xuande-period bowls of this form in the Shanghai Museum, one is unmarked and of comparable size (fig. 1), the second with a Xuande mark but slightly smaller, illustrated in Studies of the Shanghai Museum Collections, Ming Dynasty Ceramics, Shanghai, 2007, p. 116, figs. 3-32 and 3-33, respectively. Similar design of dragon roundels also appears on washers from the Xuande period, such as the example in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Selected Hsüan-te Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, Taipei, 1998, pp. 420-421, no. 183.