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Lot Essay
Each bowl has rounded sides rising to a slightly flared rim, the exterior is finely enamelled with three large lotus blossoms rendered with blue petals showing yellow on the undersides, encircling a central rose-pink bud. The flowers are surrounded by curly green leaves with yellow veins, all reserved on a rich ruby-red ground. The design of this type is based on Kangxi prototypes, such as an example in the Palace Museum, Taipei, collection number: guci 014135N.
Bowls of this form served as ‘butter tea bowls’ in the Qing imperial court. These vessels were used for drinking milk tea during imperial family banquets or feasts for Mongolian nobilities (refer to Empty Vessels, Replenished Minds: The Culture, Practice, and Art of Tea, Taipei, 2002, p.21). According to the Qing court archives, on the 15th day of the 5th month in the second year of the Yongzheng reign (1724), ten red-ground floral bowls were presented to the emperor, who then commissioned two fitted boxes to place the bowls. The present pair may be one of those recorded bowls.
An almost identical Yongzheng bowl in the Palace Museum, Taipei, is illustrated in Porcelain with Painted Enamels of Qing Yongzheng Period (1723-1735), Taipei, 2013, no.16 (fig. 1); another from the Grandidier Bequest collection and now preserved in Musee Guimet, accession number: G762, is illustrated by Hugh Moss in By Imperial Command. An Introduction to Ch’ing Imperial Painted Enamels, Hong Kong, 1976, no.79; and a pair with yellow flowerheads from the Chang Foundation, is recorded in Selected Chinese Ceramics from Han to Qing Dynasties, Taipei, 1990, no.142.
Compare also a pair of same size from the British Rail Pension Fund Collection, decorated with red-ground and blue flowers, sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 16 May 1989, lot 72; and a coral-ground pair exhibited in Recent Acquisitions by S. Marchant & Son, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 1 June 2011, lot 3531 (11,860,000 HKD).
Bowls of this form served as ‘butter tea bowls’ in the Qing imperial court. These vessels were used for drinking milk tea during imperial family banquets or feasts for Mongolian nobilities (refer to Empty Vessels, Replenished Minds: The Culture, Practice, and Art of Tea, Taipei, 2002, p.21). According to the Qing court archives, on the 15th day of the 5th month in the second year of the Yongzheng reign (1724), ten red-ground floral bowls were presented to the emperor, who then commissioned two fitted boxes to place the bowls. The present pair may be one of those recorded bowls.
An almost identical Yongzheng bowl in the Palace Museum, Taipei, is illustrated in Porcelain with Painted Enamels of Qing Yongzheng Period (1723-1735), Taipei, 2013, no.16 (fig. 1); another from the Grandidier Bequest collection and now preserved in Musee Guimet, accession number: G762, is illustrated by Hugh Moss in By Imperial Command. An Introduction to Ch’ing Imperial Painted Enamels, Hong Kong, 1976, no.79; and a pair with yellow flowerheads from the Chang Foundation, is recorded in Selected Chinese Ceramics from Han to Qing Dynasties, Taipei, 1990, no.142.
Compare also a pair of same size from the British Rail Pension Fund Collection, decorated with red-ground and blue flowers, sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 16 May 1989, lot 72; and a coral-ground pair exhibited in Recent Acquisitions by S. Marchant & Son, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 1 June 2011, lot 3531 (11,860,000 HKD).