A Rare Longquan Celadon 'Filial-Piety' BowlEarly Ming dynasty, 14th/15th century
Standing on a small foot with steeply rising rounded sides, the exterior incised with leafy sprays below an impressed key fret-patterned ground, the interior impressed with various inscribed scenes of filial piety, cracks and Japanese gilt restoration.
7in (17.8cm) diam.注脚The inscriptions on the interior of the bowl read as follows:
Meng Zong qi zhu (Meng Zong weeping by bamboo)
Mu Lan ke mu (Mulan engraving wood)
Guo Ju man er (Guo Ju buries his son)
Wang Xiang.

A Ming bowl of this type but of slightly differing design is illustrated by Regina Krahl,in Yuegutang, A Collection of Chinese Ceramics, (Berlin, 2000), p.280. Krahl dates the bowl to the early Ming dynasty, 14th or 15th century. She states a similar bowl was excavated from a tomb at Sunqiao, Jingshan county, Hubei province, dated to the 15th year of the Hongzhi period (1502). Her bowl shows a military and a civil official playing a board game under a star constellation, and the inscription zhenzi po qizhan (the gods fighting over a chess game) ; a scholar seated at a desk with a book and an inkstone, and the inscription Li Bo guan...juan (Li Bo gazing at ... book) ; an official's cap standing beside a board depicting a reclining qilin (a mythical animal) and inscribed jin yu (gold and jade) ; a lady seated at a table working on a piece of cloth, and the inscription Zhaa Jun yi yi ca (Lady Zhao improves her talents); and a man playing a qin zither with the inscription Kongzi yi Yan Hui (Confucius remembers Yan Hui). The center is impressed with the character gao (noble). Like this bowl, it also has key-pattern at the rim, inside and out.

Several different designs of this bowl exist, each with impressed figural scenes and impressed characters describing them. Such bowls are called Ningyo ude bowls in Japan because of their figural decoration.