A rare Chinese blue and white 'lotus scroll' bowl

The bowl is finely painted in various tones of underglaze blue rendering the characteristic 'heaping and piling' effect, the exterior is decorated with four Indian lotus and two classic lotus each supported on a scrolling foliate meander, all above a stiff leaf band and floral dots on the foot. The interior is decorated with a roundel enclosing a leafy peony spray surrounded by by six evenly-spaced floral and foliate sprays, all below a further band of floral dots at the rim.

Provenance: Property from a private European collection.

Catalogue notes: A similar bowl decorated with only one kind of lotus blooms was part of the Raymond F. A. Riesco Collection sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 27 November 2013, lot 2013.

The Xuande reign, albeit only about a decade long, was highly productive and brought to the world of Chinese art the development of the aesthetic of the reign mark which continued through the remainder of the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as the use of domestic potangqing cobalt for the underglaze blue. compare a similar bowl in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, as illustrated in 'The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red (I)', Hong Kong, 2000, no.152, and a further bowl in the Shanghai Museum in Wang Qingzheng's, 'Underglaze Red & Blue', Hong Kong, 1987, no.131.