Description
A fine Chinese blue and white bowl, decorated in the interior with five fish, aquatic plants and stylized waves, the exterior with large peony blomos and leaves, Wanli 1573-1619, 21.5cm.
This type of bowl is known as a 'Trenchard' bowl. One is illustrated by R.L. Hobson in the Wares of the Ming dynasty, and is fitted with a mount. It was thought for many years to have been given by Phillip of Austria to Sir Thomas Trenchard in return for hospitality when he was shipwrecked off of the Dorset coast in 1506, and published by Hobson, Rackham and King in Chinese Ceramics from Private Collections, 1931, p.172. Because of this story, it states that the bowl cannot be later than Hongxi, but obviously the story was just one handed down through the generations.
A similar bowl is illustrated by M. Medley in the Percival David Foundation catalogue, previously from the Winkworth & Russell collections, and is dated to the end of the 16th century.
