Asian Arts

The present vase is highly unusual, with no other examples of these proportions and decoration located to date. For another rare bottle vase with "bow string" ringed foot, shoulder and neck, cupped lip, famille rose floral, rockwork and butterfly decoration and a four-character mark, see the vase sold at Christie's Hong Kong, May 28, 2013, lot 2122. It is likely that both vases were based on archaic bronze forms, illustrating the interest in archaic and Song dynasty precedents for the artisans of the imperial kilns during the Yongzheng period. This particular type of bottle vase, with globular body, ringed and tapered neck and flared lip, was created in a variety of glazes and differences in modeling and proportions. The decorative motifs of scattered blossoms may be seen in the interior of a Yongzheng period "Poppy" bowl, from the Robert Chang collection, offered at Christie's, May 26, 2008, lot 1526, sold Christie's Hong Kong, October 30, 2000, lot 808; see also another bowl of different form, the interior painted with scattered prunus blossoms, the exterior with butterflies and flowers, sold at Christie's Hong Kong, May 30, 2010, lot 1873.

Norman Stanley Potter (1926–1970) was a collector with wide-ranging interests who developed an eye for classical arts and built a collection of Asian art, antiquities, and early European art. Born to Polish immigrants in New York City, Potter began his self-edification in the arts during his youth while exploring the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As a prominent mathematician and engineer, he participated in the Manhattan Project and later was a designer of complex defense systems. Together with his wife, the abstract artist Berne Potter, he was active in the art and antique worlds of New York and became friends with important gallerists and collectors, including Julius Carlebach and Melvin Gutman of Cole Galleries, Ltd., New York.