J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York

This bowl is a fine example of a rare category of imperial porcelain enamelled with elaborate floral patterns reserved on red grounds which first appear very late in the Kangxi period and continue to be made in the Yongzheng period. All the bowls of this type bear the imperial reign mark. Some are marked Yongzheng nian zhi (“year made”), and a smaller group are marked Yongzheng yu zhi (“imperial made”). This distinctive pattern has been described by the eminent authority on Chinese ceramics, Beijing Palace Museum scholar Geng Baochang, as jiu qiu (九秋), “Nine Flowers of Autumn”, a poetic reference to jiu qiu tong qing (九秋同慶), “Nine Flowers Celebrating Autumn”.

A coral-ground bowl of this pattern inscribed with the same yuzhi mark, from the Knight and Blishen Collections is illustrated by Moss, By Imperial Command: An Introduction to Ch’ing Imperial Painted Enamels, Hong Kong, 1976, pl. 75. Another example, from the Reitlinger Collection, is illustrated by Jenyns, Later Chinese Porcelain: The Ch’ing Dynasty (1644-1912), London, Fourth Edition, 1971, pl. XLV-1; and another from the Russell Collection is illustrated by Hobson, Rackham and King, Chinese Ceramics in Private Collections, London, 1931, fig. 349, together with the reign mark, fig. 350b.