A blue and white 'three friends of winter' bowl, Qing dynasty, Guangxu mark and of the period (1875-1908).

From the collection of Karl Wilhelm Gerdhem (1868-1932), Sweden. Thence by decent within the family.

Karl Wilhelm Gerdhem was a notable Swedish technologist and engineer, as well as a collector of Chinese porcelain. One of his most recognizable achievements would be his work with SAT and the other leading telephone company, Ericsson, making him one of the premier figures behind early 20th century telecommunications networking. He acquired much of his collection in the early 1900s in Beijing, during his negotiation with network construction in Guangzhou (1914-1915), before returning to Sweden at the outbreak of the WWI. When he returned to Sweden, he brought with him a rather extensive collection of Chinese Works of Art.

Compare with a bowl sold at Sothebys from the same collection with the same motif, see lot 702. Important Chinese Art, 21 March 2018 • New York.

Compare a closely related pair of bowls, included in the Exhibition of Chinese Blue and White Porcelain and Related Underglaze Red, The Oriental Ceramic Society, Hong Kong, 1975, cat. no. 116. This tranquil design was reproduced across much of the Qing dynasty. See examples of this decoration through the Qing eara, for example a Kangxi mark and period bowl of this design from the Neave-Hill Collection, illustrated in W. B. R. Neave-Hill, Chinese Ceramics, Edinburgh, 1975, pl. 146, and later sold at Christie’s London, 9th December 1991, lot 206; a Yongzheng mark and period example sold at Sothebys, 8th December 1992, lot 249 and again, 1st November 2023, lot 152; and a pair of Qianlong mark and period in the Roemer Museum, Hildesheim, illustrated in Ulrich Wiesner, Chinesisches Porzellan: Die Ohlmer'sche Sammlung im Roemer-Museum, Hildesheim, 1981, pls 43 and 44.