Lot 47. A fine and rare blue and white 'Three Friends' dish, Ming dynasty, Yongle period (1403-1424); 34 cm, 13 3/8 in. Estimate 15,000,000—20,000,000 HKD. Lot Sold 17,460,000 HKD (2,246,054 USD) to an Asian Private. Photo Sotheby's 2011

of deep saucer shape with characteristic low V-shaped foot, the inside painted with a stem of bamboo and branches of pine and prunus, the blossoms reserved in white against haloes of blue, the sides with a composite flower scroll composed of morning glory, peony, rose, lotus, chrysanthemum, hibiscus, mallow, lily, gardenia, camellia, tea and pomegranate, with a key-fret rim border, similarly repeated on the outside with a classic-scroll border above and key-fret below, the deep cobalt-blue with 'heaping and piling', the base and footring unglazed and fired an orange tone

PROVENANCE: Private collection, Hong Kong.
Eskenazi Ltd, London, 1994.

EXHIBITED: Yuan and Early Ming Blue and White Porcelain, Eskenazi Ltd, London, 1994, cat. no. 16 (illustrated).
Evolution to Perfection. Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection/Evolution vers la perfection. Céramiques de Chine de la Collection Meiyintang, Sporting d'Hiver, Monte Carlo, 1996, cat. no. 114 (illustrated).

LITERATURE AND REFERENCES: Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4, no. 1640.

NOTE: As the 'Three Friends of Winter', the evergreens bamboo and pine and the winter-flowering prunus that bears blossoms before sprouting leaves, were a popular subject for Chinese works of art, symbolizing endurance in adverse conditions. Several dishes of this type are recorded, but not all have the white prunus blossoms so effectively reserved against a blue halo.

A slightly smaller dish from the Ardabil Shrine in Iran is published in John Alexander Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, Washington, D.C., 1956, pl. 40 bottom left; another in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is shown together with one with a wave border inside the rim in Geng Baochang, ed., Gugong Bowuyuan cang Ming chu qinghua ci [Early Ming blue and white porcelain in the Palace Museum], Beijing, 2002, vol. 2, pls 130 and 131, both part of the former Qing court collection; another dish of this design in the Shanghai Museum is published in Lu Minghua, Mingdai guanyao ciqi [Ming imperial porcelain], Shanghai, 2007, pl. 1-20; one with wave border from the Shriro collection, sold in our London rooms 28th May 1963, lot 131, is published in Beatrix von Ragué, Ausgewählte Werke Ostasiatischer Kunst, Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst, Berlin, 1970, pl. 64; and a dish belonging to Lindsay F. Hay and later in the Cunliffe collection, sold in our London rooms, 25th June 1946, lot 19, was included in the exhibition The Ceramic Art of China, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1971, and is illustrated in the catalogue in Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 38, 1969-71, no. 150. A similar dish from the collection of F.G. and E.H. Morrill, exhibited on loan at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and illustrated in Daisy Lion-Goldschmidt, Ming Porcelain, London, 1978, pl. 5, was sold in our London rooms, 14th November 1967, lot 97, and 29th November 1988, lot 179, and at Christie's Hong Kong, 28th April 1997, lot 665.

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection - An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains, 07 Apr 11. Hong Kong