A LARGE BLUE AND WHITE 'WEAVER GIRL' 'KRAAK' BOWL Chongzhen Deftly potted with deep rounded sides painted around the exterior with a continuous scene of a general seated before a military tent beside guards being approached by a flag bearer pointing to a young scholar and lady, all within a balustraded garden setting with plantain and willow trees, the interior painted in the central well with a lady spinning silk thread, the cavetto with panels enclosing floral sprays, landscapes and scholars with boy attendants. 37cm (14 1/2in) diam. Footnotes: Please note this Lot is to be sold at No Reserve. 本拍品不設底價 明崇禎 青花克拉克式花卉人物紋碗 Provenance: acquired from R & G McPherson Antiques, London, on February 2015 (label and collector's notes) Published and Illustrated: M.White, Drinking at the Whites' House: Ceramics from the Whites' House collection, vol.2, n.p, 2021, p.64 來源：獲得于倫敦古董商R & G McPherson Antiques，2015年2月（標簽和藏家筆記） 著錄： M.White，《Drinking at the Whites' House: Ceramics from the Whites' House collection》，第2冊，無出版地，2021年，第64頁 A lady depicted spinning thread may be interpreted as an allusion to Zhinu, the Weaver Girl of the celebrated Niulang Zhinu legend, one of the most enduring romantic tales in Chinese culture. According to the story, Zhinu, a celestial weaver, was separated from her mortal husband Niulang, the Cowherd, and exiled across the Milky Way, permitted to reunite with him only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. The motif thus symbolises faithful love, separation, and the hope of reunion. Such imagery was widely understood in Ming and Qing visual culture, where scenes of textile work often functioned as poetic and literary references, carrying auspicious and emotional connotations beyond their apparent domestic setting. The decoration of the present bowl is notable for its eclectic imagery, combining Iznik-style floral motifs with Dutch-inspired flowers and tulips, alongside European-style houses. This rich visual mixture reflects the complex web of cultural exchange in the mid-seventeenth century (circa 1635-1650), when Chinese potters were responding to diverse foreign tastes through maritime trade. Such wares are conventionally classified as kraak porcelain, a term derived from the Portuguese carrack (merchant ship), following the capture of Portuguese vessels by the Dutch in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Kraak wares are typically characterised by thinly potted bodies, wide rims divided into radiating panels, and designs intended for export, particularly to European markets, where motifs drawn from Islamic, European, and East Asian visual traditions were readily combined. See a very similar blue and white bowl with similar decoration, illustrated by M.Rinaldi, Kraak Porcelain: A Moment in the History of Trade, London, 1989, p.163, pl.202. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing