Page 24 - Song Ceramics From a Distinguished Collection, April 5, 2017 Hong Kong

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A FINELY CARVED QINGBAI ‘BOYS’ BOWL 南宋 青白釉刻花連生貴子笠式盌
SOUTHERN SONG DYNASTY
來源：
of conical form, the thinly-potted vessel with wide flaring sides 陳淑貞，香港，1988年
rising from a slightly tapered foot to an everted rim, exquisitely
carved to the interior with two boys dressed in loose robes,
amongst a lush ground of scrolling peonies, the petals with
furled edges and freely incised with stylised wavy veins,
applied overall with a transparent glaze with a bluish tinge
pooling to a deeper tone in the recesses, the glaze stopping
neatly at the foot, the unglazed base fired to a buffed tone at
the centre
20.8 cm, 8⅛ in.

PROVENANCE
Susan Chen, Hong Kong, 1988.

HK$ 100,000-150,000
US$ 12,900-19,400

Qingbai bowls decorated with the popular ‘boys’ motif can be
found in many important museums and private collections.
Compare a larger bowl, carved with the design of boys among
vines, in the Seattle Art Museum, illustrated in Basil Gray, Sung
Porcelain and Stoneware, London, 1984, pl. 124; two examples
excavated at the Hutian kiln site in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi
province, published in Chai Kiln and Hutian Kiln, Nanning,
2004, pp. 94 and 95; and a fourth bowl in the Avery Brundage
Collection, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, illustrated in
Stacey Pierson, ed., Qingbai Ware: Chinese Porcelain of the
Song and Yuan Dynasties, London, 2002, pl. 7.

A bowl of this design, excavated from a tomb in Yihuang
county, Jiangxi province, dated in accordance with 1201
AD, and now preserved in the Jiangxi Provincial Museum, is
illustrated in Peng Shifan, ed., Dated Qingbai Wares of the Song
and Yuan Dynasties, Hong Kong, 1998, pl. 65; and another
in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is published in The Complete
Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Porcelain of the
Song Dynasty (II), Hong Kong, 1996, pl. 182. A similar bowl,
but also larger in size, from the Eugene Bernat Collection,
was sold in these rooms, 7th November 1980, lot 78; another
from the Lindberg Collection was sold in our London rooms,
12th December 1978, lot 208; and a third from the Pilkington
Collection recently sold in these rooms, 6th April 2016, lot 81.

Pierson, op. cit., p. 40, notes that the motif of two boys playing
amid stylised floral scrolls symbolises the wish for many sons.
It is also mentioned (p. 40) that for the decoration of this
type of bowl a stencil was used which led to uniformity in the
replication of the broad, undecorated rim and is reasonable
to assume that the design was popular and manufactured in
some quantity.

22 SOTHEBY’S 蘇富比