Page 85 - 2019 October Important Chinese Ceramics Sotheby's Hong Kong

his bowl is remarkable for its powerful motif of ferocious five-clawed dragons writhing their sinuous bodies above tumultuous
waves. Bowls of this form, with steeply flaring sides to accommodate a similarly-shaped cover were an innovation of the
T Yongzheng reign and have been attributed to the early years of his reign. Bowls of this type are discussed by Peter Y.K. Lam in
‘Lang Tingji (1663-1715) and the Porcelain of the Late Kangxi Period’, Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 68, 2002-2003, p.
44, where he suggests that wares inscribed with a reign mark that features the character qing (great) with the yue (moon) radical written
with a vertical line, instead of a horizontal line, as on this piece, were made not long after the death of the Kangxi Emperor (1662-1722).
Bowls of this type are held in important Museums and private collections worldwide; a closely related pair of bowls in the Palace
Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection. Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Hong Kong, 1989, pl.
30; another two in the Nanjing Museum were included in the Chinese University of Hong Kong exhibition Qing Imperial Porcelain of
the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong Reigns, Hong Kong, 1995, cat. no. 52; a single bowl is illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in the Avery
Brundage Collection, San Francisco, 1967, pl. LXXIII (C); and another from the Aykroyd collection, illustrated in Soame Jenyns, Later
Chinese Porcelain, London, 1951, pl. XCIV, fig. 3, was sold in our London rooms, 17th May 1966, lot 230.

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