A cloisonné enamel 'Three Friends of Winter' bowl


16th centuryBrightly enamelled with variety of colours with bamboo, prunus and pine, between floral bands at the short flaring foot and everted mouth rim, the interior with four Buddhist lions playing with brocade balls, the well with a frolicking carp underneath the sun. 22.5cm (8 3/4in) diam.
|A similar cloisonné enamel bowl decorated with the 'Three Friends' motif was sold by Sotheby's, London, 16 May 2018, lot 143. Another 16th century bowl with Buddhist lions to the exterior, dated 16th century, was sold in these rooms, 15 May 2018, lot 682. For another similar bowl with the 'Three Friends of winter' design, dated mid-16th century, and held in the Les Arts Décoratifs - Musées des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, see B. Quette, Cloisonné: Chinese Enamels from the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, 2011, p. 247, no. 46.