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

A similarly moulded ‘shufu’ type bowl of this form and size, in the Jiangxi Provincial Museum, decorated with lotus scroll incorporating the two characters fu and shou, found in 1984 from a Yuan dynasty hoard in Lean, Jiangxi province, is illustrated in Zhongguo Taoci Quanji: Yuan (The Complete Works of Chinese Ceramics: Yuan), Vol. 11, Shanghai, 2000, no. 103, p. 100.  Several other bowls with press-moulded characters shu and fu were also found in the Lean hoard and are published in the excavation report ‘Jiangxi Lean Faxian Yuan Dai Ciqi Jiaocang’ (Yuan Dynasty Hoard of Ceramics Discovered in Lean, Jiangxi), Wenwu, 1989, no. 1, pp. 75-78.

Another group of bowls with moulded design incorporating the characters shu and fu found in 1984 from a Yuan dynasty hoard in Qin county, Anhui province, are illustrated in the excavation report ‘Qinxian Chutu Liangpi Jiaocang Yuan Ci Zhenping’ (Treasures from Two Yuan Dynasty Hoards in Qin County), Wenwu, 1988, no. 5, pl. 1, no. 85 and pls. 4-5, p. 86.

A slightly larger shallow bowl of this type, moulded with a similar floral scroll incorporating the characters shu and fu in the well, is illustrated by Harrison-Hall, Catalogue of Late Yuan and Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, pl. I:13, pp. 64-65, from the Seligman Collection. Another shallow ‘shufu’ bowl in the collection of Capital Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in Zhongguo taoci quanji: Yuan (The Complete Works of Chinese Ceramics: Yuan), Vol. 11, Shanghai, 2000, no. 97, p. 95.

Similar ‘shufu’ type shallow bowls moulded with a variety of designs were recovered from the cargo of a ship wrecked off the coast of Korea in or around A.D. 1323, and some examples are illustrated in the catalogue entitled Special Exhibition of Cultural Relics Found Off Sinan Coast, National Museum of Korea, Seoul, 1977, pls. 210 and 211.