AN EXTREMELY RARE BLUE AND WHITE ANHUA 'PHOENIX' BOWL MARK AND PERIOD OF XUANDE

the deep rounded sides supported on a slightly tapered foot and rising to a wide everted rim, painted in bright underglaze cobalt accented with 'heaping and piling', the interior with a phoenix roundel with a male bird confronting a female bird among lotus scrolls, distinguished by their plain and serrated tail feathers, below a faint anhua decoration of phoenix and lotus around the inside walls and a 'classic' scroll border at the rim, the exterior densely painted with a couple of large phoenix gliding among scrolling lotus with fully outstretched wings, above a band of petal lappets skirting the foot, the base inscribed in underglaze blue with a six-character mark within a double ring

Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 5th November 1996, lot 744.
J.J. Lally & Co., New York.

Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4, no. 1659.

A section of the rim has been broken and restored. The break covers approx. 25 cm. and has broken in six parts now restuck together. The bowl was recently restored and the restored areas are quite well done.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This design, which might appear to be a classic pattern of the Xuande repertoire, is in fact extremely rare and no exact companion piece appears to have been published. A very similar, but much smaller bowl, apparently lacking the anhua on the inside, discarded at the time and now excavated at the waste heaps of the Ming imperial kiln site, was included in the exhibition Jingdezhen chutu Yuan Ming guanyao ciqi/Yuan’s and Ming’s Imperial Porcelain Unearthed from Jingdezhen, Yan-Huang Art Museum, Beijing, 1999, cat. no. 134 (fig. 1), together with dragon-decorated counterpart with more complex design inside, cat. no. 133, and a Chenghua version of the phoenix design, cat. no. 293.

The same phoenix design is found also on a bowl of different proportions, narrower and deeper, in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, see Mingdai Xuande guanyao jinghua tezhan tulu/Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Selected Hsüan-te Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1998, cat. no. 59 (fig. 2), and is similarly seen on dishes, for example, ibid., cat. no. 192.

A bowl of similar form and size as the present piece, and with the same design on the outside but a cloud motif and classic scroll only on the inside, formerly in the collection of Richard Bryant Hobart, is published in Fujioka Ryoichi and Hasebe Gakuji, Sekai tōji zenshū/Ceramic Art of the World, vol. 14: Min/Ming Dynasty, Tokyo, 1976, col. pls. 23 and 24, and was sold in our New York rooms, 12th December 1969, lot 257.

The elaborately painted lotus petals below the phoenixes were developed in the Yongle period, and a similar Yongle bowl decorated with dragons, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, again with a cloud motif and classic scroll only on the inside, is illustrated in Geng Baochang, ed., Gugong Bowuyuan cang Ming chu qinghua ci [Early Ming blue-and-white porcelain in the Palace Museum], Beijing, 2002, vol. 1, pl. 46.