The pair of small bowls are constructed with a double wall - the outer wall having been cut and carved before firing in a decorative process known as “ling long” or “devils-work”. The inner wall was then painted with flowering foliage in under glaze blue and then luted to the bowl at both the rim and foot. The piercing to the outer wall is of a trellis pattern divided by roundels each decorated with a swastika in under glaze blue. Diameter 8 cm
The Avalon Collection. This collection, which in the main focuses on the Interregnum and Kangxi periods
has been both carefully and sensitively formed over the last twenty-five years. The collector, a member of the English Oriental Ceramic Society, has assembled the collection with an eye for provenance whilst purchasing from old European collections, well-established antique dealers and at auction. Academically, the pieces have been well researched both in terms of their symbolism and narrative themes. In many instances the imagery on the pieces has been referenced to episodes in the romantic and historic novels of Chinese mythology, which were used extensively in the decoration of seventeenth century Chinese porcelain. Purchased from Geoffrey Waters Antique Chinese Porcelain, London, June 2003.