A fine blue and white 'trigram' bowl, Mark and period of Kangxi

Collection of Emil (1870-1948) and Jenny (b. 1880) Baerwald, by 1929.

Collection of Paul Baerwald (1871-1961).

J. Post, New York.

Sotheby's London, 17th December 1980, lot 654.

The Goldschmidt Collection.

Sotheby's Hong Kong, 13th November 1990, lot 6.

Ausstellung chinesischer Kunst [Exhibition of Chinese Art], Prussian Academy of Arts, Berlin, 1929, cat. no. 812.

An Exhibition of the Paul Baerwald Collection of Chinese Porcelain: Rare Monochromes, Blue and White, and Other Porcelains of the Sung, Ming and Chʼing Dynasties, John Sparks, London, 1937, cat. no. 52.

Oosterse Schatten, 4000 Jaar Aziatische Kunst [Eastern Shadows: 4,000 Years of Asian Art], Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1954, cat. no. 286.

The finely potted body and luminous glaze of this bowl exemplify the extraordinary technical refinement achieved at the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen during the Kangxi period (1662-1722), when advances in clay formulation, glaze clarity, and cobalt control allowed for unprecedented precision and elegance. The painted trigram motifs derive from the Yijing (Book of Changes), a foundational text that informed cosmological thinking at the Qing court. While Confucian statecraft remained paramount, Daoist concepts of harmony, transformation, and the dynamic balance of yin and yang continued to permeate imperial ideology and artistic expression. Such symbols, discreetly incorporated into court wares, reflect the Qing emperors’ intellectual engagement with Daoism and their interest in aligning imperial authority with the ordered rhythms of the natural world.

Bowls of this type are rare. A closely related example was formerly in the collection of Alfred Edward Hippisley (1848–1939), acquired in China between 1876 and 1884, later sold by J.J. Lally to the Freer Gallery of Art in 1995, and now preserved in the National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, D.C. (accession no. F1995.8), where it is published on the Museum’s website. Compare also a pair from an old Hong Kong family collection, sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 25th November 2022, lot 301; and a single bowl from a European private collection, sold at Christie’s New York, 18th September 2015, lot 2233.