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

Compare the bowl with anhua lotus scroll and incised Yongle mark from the Clark Collection which was included in the O.C.S. Exhibition of Monochrome Porcelain, 1948, Catalogue, no. 32. Two other bowls of this type from the Oppenheim Collection, now in the British Museum, are illustrated by Jenyns, Later Chinese Porcelain, London, 1977, pl. XLIII, both with anhua decoration, fig. 1B, matching these bowls in size and form but apparently unmarked, and fig. 1A with a Yongle mark but of smaller size.

The List of Porcelains supplied to the Imperial Chinese Court compiled by the future director of the kilns at Jingdezhen, Tang Ying, in 1729, translated by Bushell, Oriental Ceramic Art, 1897, p. 199, includes as item 24, “copies of Yung-lo porcelain, including pieces of eggshell, of plain white, with engraved and embossed designs.”

Numerous shards of early Ming Yongle ‘sweet white’ porcelain have been found at Jingdezhen, including stemcups with a four character Yongle mark inside the bowl in seal script probably based on a rendition by the Ming dynasty court calligrapher Shen Du (1357–1434); these are discussed by Liu Xinyuan in the catalogue of the traveling exhibition shown at the Hong Kong Museum of Art entitled Jingdezhen Zhushan chutu Yongle Xuande Guanyao ciqi zhanlan (Imperial Porcelain of the Yongle and Xuande Periods Excavated from the Site of the Ming Imperial Factory at Jingdezhen), Hong Kong, 1989, pp. 74–75.