A very rare yellow-ground iron-red 'dragon' bowl, Seal mark and period of Qianlong

Christie's London, 16th November 1999, lot 223.

This bowl is particularly elegant in the depiction of the dragon designs finely shaded in iron-red enamel. The combination of a red design with a rich yellow ground is relatively rare during the Qianlong period, even though an extensive variety of colors was used to decorate porcelain at that time.

Closely related examples are held in important museums worldwide, including one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong: Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1989, p. 334, pl. 15; another in the Nanjing Museum, included in the exhibition Qing Imperial Porcelain of the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong Reigns, Nanjing Museum and Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1995, cat. no. 84; and a further bowl in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, illustrated in Rose Kerr, Chinese Ceramics: Porcelain of the Qing Dynasty 1644-1911, London, 1986, p. 49, fig. 27.

Compare also a pair from the H.M. Knight Collection, included in Oosterse Schatten: 4,000 Jaar Aziatische Kunst, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1954, cat. no. 419; another pair from the Yidetang Collection, most recently sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 12th October 2021, lot 25; and a single bowl, formerly in the Paul and Helen Bernat Collection, sold in the same rooms, 15th November 1988, lot 29.