A fine blue and white ogee 'bajixiang' bowl, Seal mark and period of Qianlong | 清乾隆 青花福山壽海八吉祥折腰盌 《大清乾隆年製》款

S. Marchant & Son, London.

馬錢特，倫敦

Bowls of this type are extremely rare and only one other example appears to have been published, from the collection of Erik Akerlund, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 30th May 2012, lot 4176. A similar design on an ogee form, but with more negative space between the beribboned bajixiang are well known enamelled in the doucai palette; see one in the Nanjing Museum, included in the exhibition Qing Imperial Porcelain of the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong Reigns, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1995, cat. no. 106; another in the Tokyo National Museum, published in the Illustrated Catalogue of Tokyo National Museum. Chinese Ceramics, vol. 2, Tokyo, 1990, pl. 592, together with two bowls of this type with Jiaqing and Daoguang marks and of the respective periods; a pair from the Umezawa Kinenkan, Tokyo, included in the exhibition Shinsho tōji, MOA Art Museum, Atami, 1984, cat. no. 44; and a further pair from the Toguri Museum of Art, Tokyo, sold in these rooms, 9th June 2004, lot 2. For a bowl pencilled with this design in underglaze blue only, see two sold in these rooms, one, 29th May 1978, lot 632, and the other, 21st May 1982, lot 714.

The design is reminiscent of an early-Ming Buddhist motif of a double vajra surrounded by eight petal panels containing the bajixiang, although here the panels have been replaced by curling ribbons. Interestingly, in the Qing version the order of the bajixiang has been slightly altered, with the twin-fish emblem appearing before the knot and after the vase emblem. For the prototype of this motif, see a blue and white basin attributed to the Yongle reign, in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, illustrated in He Li, Chinese Ceramics: A New Comprehensive Survey from the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, New York, 1996, pl. 398.