FINE AND RARE FAMILLE VERTE 'MANDARIN DUCKS' BOWL,KANGXI PERIOD, the steep well-potted and slightly-flared sides gently rounding to meet the tall foot, the exterior finely-decorated with two mandarin ducks swimming in a lotus pond with smaller birds perched among reeds, on rocks and in flight, the foot with a scroll band, 17cm diam Provenance: Sotheby's London, 16th June 1998, lot 266. Exhibited: The World in Colours, Oriental Ceramic Society Exhibition, 2006, no.116. Note: this bowl belongs to a very rare group of similar vessels which have been dated to the late Kangxi or early Yongzheng period. For an example in the Victoria & Albert Museum see Ayers, J., Far Eastern Ceramics, London 1980, pl.201. Other published bowls from the group include a pair from the Robert C. Bruce Collection exhibited in the Oriental Ceramic Society exhibition, Enamelled Polychrome Porcelain of the Manchu Dynasty, London 1951, pl.22, no.98; and one from the Collection of King Gustav VI Adolf of Sweden, illustrated in Wirgin, J., K'ang-Hsi Porcelain, BMFEA 46, Stockholm 1951, pl.27 (a & b). For similar examples see - Sotheby's 12th May 1953, lot 140 (possibly the Robert C. Bruce pair mentioned above); Sotheby's Hong Kong, 1st November 1994, lot 68; Christie's New York, 16th September 2010, lot 1382 and 18-19th September 2014, lot 835.