China, Song dynasty (960-1279) - Lot 68

China, Song dynasty (960-1279) Large celadon-glazed stoneware heating bowl (wenwan 温婉), lobed form (with six petal-like lobes) and molded decoration of large floral scrolls, six lobes, six pearl marks inside, short flared rim H. 12.1; diam. 17.8 cm Scratches Provenance : -Cornette de St Cyr sale, June 11, 2019, lot 221 -Josette and Théo Schulmann Collection, acquired 1960-1970 This form of high-brimmed bowl is a warming bowl (warming bol in English and wenwan 温婉in Chinese) and always went hand in hand with a pourer or ewer for alcohol, so this pair of objects is called in Chinese 注子温碗 (zhuzi wenwan), or pourer and warming bowl. The bowl was filled with hot water and the pourer was placed in it to heat or keep warm the alcohol. This form developed under the Five Dynasties, and most known examples are Song or Liao, corresponding to the custom of drinking hot alcohol at the time. The most numerous are in qingbai porcelain, but there are also examples in celadon from the Yue kilns. An example in celadon from the Yaozhou kilns of the Five Dynasties was even found during an excavation in Shaanxi. Our bowl has lost its ewer, but like all these bowls, it has a lobed flower petal shape. Rarer are those with flowery rinceaux incised on the outside. An example of a Southern Song qingbai heating bowl and pourer is preserved at the National Museum of China (Beijing), found in Jiangsu in 1983, another Song example in qingbai porcelain is preserved at the Forbidden City (Gugong bowuguan), n°00181597, the bowl being exactly the same size as this one. Two examples (from the same museum) of a Yaozhou stoneware heating bowl from the Song period were published in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum 故宫博物馆文物珍品大系, Ceramics of the Song Dynasty (I) 两宋瓷器 (上), Shanghai , 2002, n°101 and 102. An example of a Qingbai porcelain heating bowl (and ewer), Southern Song, with a bowl incised with large floral scrolls around the rim, was sold at Bonhams Hong Kong on October 9, 2014, lot 157. Another example in celadon-glazed stoneware decorated with large floral scrolls around the rim (more openwork), dating from the Five Dynasties/Northern Song, sold at Sotheby's New York on September 19, 2023, lot 774.