A fine yellow-ground famille-rose 'floral' bowl, Seal mark and period of Daoguang

Collection of Sir Thomas Beaumont Hohler (1871-1946), and thence by descent.

This playful floral design is closely related to that of earlier bowls enamelled in the Imperial Workshop in Beijing, bearing Kangxi yu zhi marks and decorated with four peonies. See two Kangxi bowls of this design, with two red and two blue peonies, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Qing gong zhong falangcai ci tezhan / Special Exhibition of Ch’ing Dynasty Enamelled Porcelains of the Imperial Ateliers, Taipei, 1992, pls 3 and 4; one from the Qing Court Collection in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Porcelains with Cloisonné Enamel Decoration and Famille Rose Decoration, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 5; and one with four peonies of four different colours in the Sir Percival David Collection in the British Museum, London, illustrated in Illustrated Catalogue of Qing Enamelled Ware in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, 1991, p. 46, no. A806.

A small number of Daoguang bowls of this type are known. Compare a very similar bowl exhibited in the Min Chiu Society exhibition, Splendour of the Qing Dynasty, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1992, cat. no. 196, and later sold at Christie’s Singapore, 30th March 1997, lot 278; another from the collection of the British Rail Pension Fund, sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 16th May 1989, lot 84; and another sold in our New York rooms, 23rd March 2022, lot 350.