Boldly painted in underglaze blue, the flared sides decorated on the exterior with four finely delineated large fish swimming between exquisite sprays of lotus flowers and leaves above a basal collar of lappets, the interior decorated with a broad band of swimming ducks also between sprays of lotus flowers, in the centre a large cartouche containing a single large fish in between water plants, the footrim unglazed, the base glazed, with a six character Chenghua mark inside double circle of incised blue lines.
Literature
For an almost identical bowl,see Jorg, C., Chinese Ceramics in the Collection of the Rijksmuseum: The Ming and Ching Dynasties, plate 16, page 39, Inventory number AK-TN 1943.
For a similar design of fish on a bowl, see Krahl, R., et al., Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, 1986, no 1504.
