Captain Bertram Currie was a personal friend of R.H.R and Lena Palmer and served in the Scots Guards in the Great War before entering the family bank. In addition to collecting Chinese ceramics, he was a keen sailor and raced out of Cowes, often with HM King George VI and HRH Princess Elizabeth on board. Currie sold a selection of his Chinese overglaze enamels at Christie’s in April 1933.
This type of white-glazed openwork decoration, featuring a trellis pattern and relief designs of five medallions enclosing Shoulao and the Eight Immortals painted in colors, is often attributed to the late Ming dynasty, around the Tianqi period (1621–1627). A closely related example, bearing an apocryphal Chenghua mark, is preserved in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv. no. C.1018-1910). Comparable bowls are also held in the British Museum (asset no. 385214001) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (object no. 79.2.494).