A Chinese white-glazed Dingyao moulded bowl

The dish is delicately moulded with a design of phoenix around a central roundel enclosing two mandarin ducks in a lotus pond, all surrounded by a band of squared scrolls to the rim. It is covered in an ivory-coloured glaze, the rim left unglazed.

Catalogue notes: A similar phoenix moulded bowl was sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 6 April 2016, The Pilkington Collection of Chinese Art, lot 80. A similar piece can also be found in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and is illustrated in Jan Wirgin, Sung Ceramic Designs, Stockholm, 1970, pl. 85a