Imperial yellow-ground blue and white saucer dish. Six character mark of Zhengde within a double ring and of the period, 1506-1521.

with shallow rounded sides and gently flaring rim on a slightly inverted foot painted in the centre with a flowering gardenia spray, the single branch bearing two open blooms, a bud and eight leaves, all within a double ring repeated at the rim, the cavetto with fruiting branches of peach, pomegranate and vine and a tied bouquet of flowering lotus, the underside encircled by a continuous peony scroll with eight blooms evenly spaced amongst leaves arranged in groups of three, the overall translucent yellow ground of rich egg-yolk colour, the white-glazed base with a bluish tint. 9 7/8 inches, 25.2cm diameter. 9 7/8 inches, 25.2cm diameter. Price on request.

Notes: • Formerly in a private Japanese collection.

• A similar dish, bequeathed by Harry Oppenheim, OA1947.7-12.258, is illustrated by Jessica Harrison-Hall in Ming Ceramics in the British Museum,no.8:24, p.204, where the author illustrates another bequeathed by Henry B. Harris, OA.1929.7-22.11, no.8:23; another, in the Fogg Art Museum, was included in the China Institute in America exhibition of Ming Porcelains, 1970, no.36; another, in the Percival David Foundation of Asian Art, is illustrated by Margaret Medley in The World’s Great Collections, Oriental Ceramics, Volume 6, colour plate 37; a further example is illustrated by Regina Krahl in Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Volume II, full colour page no.683, p.70 and 72; a further dish, from The Tianminlou Foundation, was included by Louise Allison Cort and Jan Stuart in Joined Colours, Decoration and Meaning in Chinese Porcelain, Hong Kong, 1993, no.8, p.79.

• Gardenia represents the eleventh month.

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