A rare 'Ming-style' blue and white bowl, Chenghua six-character mark, Kangxi period. Estimate HK$ 250,000 - 350,000 (€29,000 - 41,000). Photo: Bonhams.
Elegantly potted with rounded sides above a short foot, the exterior painted in rich blue tones with a continuous heavenly landscape scene, depicting a female deity accompanied by three female attendants within a terraced courtyard by a pavilion surrounded by clouds, one attendant leads with a candle lit, all amidst willow trees, flowering plants, tall rockwork and distant mountains, the base with a Chenghua six-character kaishu apocryphal mark. 12.6cm (5in) diam.
Provenance: Mrs Walter Sedgwick Collection (1883-1967)
Sotheby's London, 1 November 1965, lot 178
Hans Goldstein collection and thence by descent
Published and Illustrated: S.Jenyns, Later Chinese Porcelain. The Ch'ing Dynasty (1622-1912), London, 1971, pl.XVI, no.2
Notes: The present lot is an excellent example of very fine Kangxi period 'Ming-style' blue and white porcelain. The rich deep cobalt blue tones achieved on this bowl, as well as the style of design and composition were clearly inspired by similar figural blue and white pieces from the early Ming dynasty. This includes decorative elements such as the continuous scene of a terraced courtyard, with billowing clouds enveloping areas of the design, and the extremely precise and detailed rendering of figures. Compare a Kangxi period bowl, apocryphal Xuande mark with a very similar scene, illustrated in A Panorama of Ceramics in the Collection of the National Palace Museum: Hsuan-te Ware I, Taipei, 2000, p.53, fig.46.
The illustration of court ladies or celestial maidens in garden or courtyard settings was frequently produced in the early Ming, and was particularly favoured during the Xuande period. Examples of blue and white bowls, Xuande mark and period, with drawings also of ladies on a night excursion are in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei: see two bowls, each decorated with an attendant holding a lantern, lighting the way for her mistress in a deer-drawn carriage, illustrated in ibid., pp.244-247, nos.92 and 93. These type of bowls would have been the prototype for the present bowl. There are however, discernable stylistic differences between the Ming and Qing versions, with the latter's clouds executed with a more 'pencilled' effect and the ladies drawn with more pointed and angular faces, though the overall aesthetic remains similar.
Compare with a rare blue and white bowl, Kangxi six-character mark and of the period, of very similar painting style, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Blue and White Porcelain with Underglaze Red (I), Beijing, 2010, p.75, no.65.
See a related blue and white bowl, Kangxi mark and period, sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 7 April 2015, lot 3644
BONHAMS. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART, 4 Jun 2015 10:30 HKT - HONG KONG, ADMIRALTY