XUANDE SIX-CHARACTER MARK WITHIN DOUBLE CIRCLES AND OF THE PERIOD (1426-1435)

With its fine potting and elegant decoration, the current bowl is a classic example of Xuande porcelain, and is particularly distinguished by the border of dotted prunus blossoms at rims, a motif that first appeared on Yongle porcelain, as seen on the exterior rims of two small Yongle-marked blue and white 'press-hand' cups, or yashoubei, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, published in Blue and White Porcelain with Underglaze Red (I), The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 2000, pp. 81-2, nos. 78-9. These somewhat abstract florettes, spaciously arranged and seemingly effortless painted, imbue the otherwise stylised design with a sense of space and liveliness.

Compare a nearly identical example in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in Special Exhibition of Selected Hsüan-te Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, Taipei, 1998, pp. 328-9, no. 137; one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, published in Blue and White Porcelain with Underglaze Red (I), The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 2000, p. 160, no. 152. In Shanghai Museum, illustrated by Lu Minghua in Mingdai guanyao ciqi, p. 117, fig. 3-35; another sold at Christie's Tokyo, 16-17 February 1980, lot 784, and illustrated by Anthony du Boulay in Christie's Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics, Oxford, 1984, p. 116, fig. 5; and one sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 2 May 2005, lot 505.