Lobed brush-washers of this kind are based on Song dynasty prototypes, an example of which was sold in these Rooms, 31 October 1994, lot 528. These tripod brush-washers with geyao glazes are relatively rare, even during the Song dynasty as most of the Song brush-washers were made without feet. A washer of floral profile comparable to the present lot but without the tripod feet, is in the National Palace Museum, Taibei, and illustrated in the Catalogue, Southern Sung Kuan Ware, pl. 54.

Due to the Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors' keen interest in the antique revival, Song glazes were often copied during the Qing dynasty. A ge-type bulb bowl with a Yongzheng mark in the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol. 9, no. 274. At some point in the past, an attempt was made to pass off the example in the Victoria and Albert Museum as a Song original as the mark had been ground off the bowl which is illustrated by W. B. Honey in The Ceramic Art of China and Other Countries, pl. 43B.

(US$45,000-58,000)