A Chinese Doucai ‘Medallion’ bowl

The deep rounded sides decorated on the exterior with five stylized flowering and fruiting tree medallions interspersed with formal pomegranate sprays below a double line border and above a band of lappets, the interior painted with a large medallion enclosing stylized foliate fronds, with an apocryphal Chenghua mark in blue on the base. Period: 18th century. Diameter: 18.5 cm.

Compare with a very similar Kangxi bowl of this form and decoration in the Qing Court collection, illustrated in ‘The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum’ – Porcelains in Polychrome and Contrasting Colours, Hong Kong, 1999, p. 216, no. 197. The tree medallions and pomegranate sprays were copied in the Daoguang and subsequent reigns but on bowls with flaring sides instead of the Kangxi prototype’s rounded bowls. A Daoguang bowl of this pattern from the Simon Kwan Collection was included in the Exhibition of Imperial Porcelain of Late Qing at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1983, catalogue no. 32. The origin of the actual design appears to be even earlier than the Kangxi period. Compare for example the sixteenth century bowl from the Garner Collection painted with a fruiting tree and exhibited in Venice, 1954, catalogue no. 684.

Condition: For condition report, please contact the department here.

Provenance: Formerly Wilhelm Montelius (1852‑1918).
A Swedish Private Collection.