Page 101 - Sotheby's Arcadian beauty Song Pottery Oct. 3, 2018

fig. 1 fig. 2
Junyao purple-splashed bubble bowl, Northern Song dynasty Junyao purple-splashed bubble bowl, Northern Song dynasty
Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 19th May 1987, lot 209 Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 3rd April 2018, lot 3605

colouration inside and a more distinctly painted purple Ceramics, Geneva, 1968-1974, vol. I, nos A 31 and A 32; in the
‘pattern’ outside. The first one, also formerly in the collection Victoria and Albert Museum, London, from the Eumorfopoulos
of Edward T. Chow, was sold in our London rooms, 16th collection, published in Rose Kerr, Song Dynasty Ceramics,
December 1980, lot 264, again in these rooms from the T.Y. London, 2004, pl. 26 front; and in the Sir Percival David
Chao collection, 19th May 1987, lot 209, and at Christie’s New collection in the British Museum, illustrated in Stacey Pierson,
York from the Jingguantang collection, 16th September 1998, Song Ceramics: Objects of Admiration, London, 2003, pl. 20.
lot 359 (fig. 1); the second one, reputedly from the collection
The current bowl was formerly in the collections of two of
of Alfred Schoenlicht, included in the Oriental Ceramic Society
the most renowned collectors and dealers of Chinese art in
exhibition China Without Dragons: Rare Pieces from Oriental
the 20th century, Edward T. Chow (1910-1980, fig. 3 right)
Ceramic Society Members, London, 2016, no. 72, was sold
and Sakamoto Gorō (1923-2016 fig. 3 left), shown together
in our London rooms, 8th November 2006, lot 55, and again
in this 1970s photo. Few individuals have shaped the market
recently in these rooms, 3rd April 2018, lot 3605 (fig. 2).
for Chinese works of art as prominently as Edward T. Chow,
A related bowl in the Palace Museum, Beijing, with fewer a dealer-collector who had worked in Shanghai and Hong
purple splashes and apparently a paler blue glaze is illustrated Kong before settling in Switzerland. With a connoisseurship
in Jun ci ya ji. Gugong Bowuyuan zhencang ji chutu Junyao on Chinese art, discernible eye and relentless demand for
ciqi huicui/Selection of Jun Ware. The Palace Museum’s quality, he was one of the favourite addresses for the major
Collection and Archaeological Excavation, Palace Museum, collectors of the time, such as Sir Percival David, King Gustaf
Beijing, 2013, pl. 36; and a slightly smaller bowl also in the Adolf of Sweden, Eiichi Ataka, J.M. Hu, or Barbara Hutton,
Palace Museum and decorated with less purple on the blue many of whom he managed to advise and as such to play an
glaze, is published in The Complete Collection of Treasures important role in the formation of collections, as for example,
of the Palace Museum: Porcelain of the Song Dynasty, Hong the Meiyintang collection.
Kong, 1996, vol. 1, pl. 222. Other ‘bubble’ bowls with sparser Sakamoto Gorō (1923-2016) was a celebrated dealer whose
purple splashes are, for example, in the Baur Collection, career in the Asian art world spanned almost 70 years. A
illustrated in John Ayers, The Baur Collection Geneva: Chinese
series of sales from his personal collection – ranging from

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