A coral-ground famille-verte ‘peony’ bowl, Yuzhi, mark and period of Yongzheng | 清雍正 珊瑚紅地五彩牡丹紋盌 《雍正御製》款

Collection acquired by the parents of the present owners from prominent dealers in Europe and the United States during the 1970s and 1980s, and thence by family descent.

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現藏家之父母於1970至80年代得自歐洲及美國重要骨董商，此後家族傳承

A similar bowl in the Shanghai Museum is illustrated in Chugoku toji zenshu [Complete book of Chinese ceramics], vol. 21, Kyoto, 1981, pl. 105 and two closely related examples are in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Jincheng xuying: Qing Yongzheng falangcai ci [Porcelain with Painted Enamels of Qing Yongzheng period (1723-1735)], 2013, Taipei, cat. no. 20. A pair of these bowls from the collection of the British Rail Pension Fund was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 16th May 1989, lot 72, one of them subsequently illustrated in Sotheby's Hong Kong Twenty Years, Hong Kong, 1993, pl. 226. See also the pair from the collection of Joseph Lau, last sold in our Hong Kong rooms 29th April 2022, lot 6, one of them illustrated in Hugh Moss, By Imperial Command, Hong Kong, 1976, pl.78, together with another example from the Maze foundation, Id. pl. 77 and a related enamelled example, pl. 79, from the Grandidier collection, now preserved in Musée Guimet, Paris (accession no. G762). 

Bowls of this pattern are also found with yellow flowerheads, such as the pair in the Chang Foundation illustrated in James Spencer, Selected Chinese Ceramics from Han to Qing Dynasties, Taipei, 1990, pl. 142, and another bowl in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, apparently with yellow flowers, was included in the Special Exhibition of Ch'ing Dynasty Painted Enamels, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1979, cat. no. 35.

Reign marks with the wording yuzhi [made for the imperial use of…] following the reign name, rather than nianzhi [made in the years of…] are rare and suggest a closer relationship to the imperial court.