A Rare Chinese Export Blue and White Armorial Small Punch Bowl Qing Dynasty, Yongzheng Period, Circa 1728 | 清雍正 約1728年 青花花卉紋章圖盌

Freeman's Philadelphia, April 2001 

David Sanctuary Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain, Vol. II, Chippenham, 2003, p. 127, A4.

A rare example, the present lot is illustrated alongside a contemporaneous gold filigree box bearing the same arms. In addition, identical arms are also seen on a rouge de fer and gold service of the same date, illustrated in David Sanctuary Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain, Vol. I, London, 1974, p. 210, D3. The present lot appears to be the only example from the blue and white service illustrated. Howard suggests that the two services and the gold box may have been made for the Reverend Richard Lowther, Rector of Swillington in Yorkshire, who married Margaret Adams of Rowcliff. Howard further theorizes that given the Reverend would have been in his seventies at the time of production of these services and the gold box, the box may have been a golden wedding present.