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Lot Essay
The exterior of the bowl is delicately decorated around the exterior with a continuous scene depicting four ladies in a garden scene; two of whom relaxing and conversing inside a pavilion, the other two are depicted strolling on a terrace. The continuous decoration to the exterior resembles a painting scroll when the bowl is rotated.
‘Ladies in garden’ is a theme frequently seen on paintings by Ming court painters. The scene on the current bowl is very likely a portrayal of noble ladies and their leisurely inner court life.
An identical bowl with the same composition and shape, and of comparable size (19.2 cm.), is in the National Palace Museum Collection, possibly originally a pair with the current bowl (acquisition number guci 003132N000000000 fig. 1). Another Xuande-marked bowl of slightly smaller size (18.9 cm.) from the same collection, is painted with the same composition on the exterior, but with an additional decoration of ‘Three Friends of Winter’ on the interior. According to the National Palace Museum catalogue, this bowl is also characterised by distinctly thin potting, similar to our current lot (see Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Selected Hsuan-te Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, Taipei, 1998, pl. 149 fig. 2).
Compare also to a Xuande-marked bowl decorated with figures but depicting the immortal Xiwangmu riding a flying phoenix, formerly in the E.T. Chow and Falk Collections, sold at Christie’s New York, 16 October 2001, lot 134, for US$1,161,000 (fig. 3).
‘Ladies in garden’ is a theme frequently seen on paintings by Ming court painters. The scene on the current bowl is very likely a portrayal of noble ladies and their leisurely inner court life.
An identical bowl with the same composition and shape, and of comparable size (19.2 cm.), is in the National Palace Museum Collection, possibly originally a pair with the current bowl (acquisition number guci 003132N000000000 fig. 1). Another Xuande-marked bowl of slightly smaller size (18.9 cm.) from the same collection, is painted with the same composition on the exterior, but with an additional decoration of ‘Three Friends of Winter’ on the interior. According to the National Palace Museum catalogue, this bowl is also characterised by distinctly thin potting, similar to our current lot (see Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Selected Hsuan-te Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, Taipei, 1998, pl. 149 fig. 2).
Compare also to a Xuande-marked bowl decorated with figures but depicting the immortal Xiwangmu riding a flying phoenix, formerly in the E.T. Chow and Falk Collections, sold at Christie’s New York, 16 October 2001, lot 134, for US$1,161,000 (fig. 3).