A Doucai 'Birthday' Saucer Dish. Yongzheng Six-Character Mark In Underglaze Blue Within A Double Circle And Of The Period (1723-1735). photo Christie's Ltd 2011

With shallow rounded sides, the interior finely painted with five iron-red bats (wufu) flying around a fruiting peach tree growing from the side of a cliff that overhangs a blue rock rising from breaking green waves, the exterior with pairs of bats alternating with four fruiting branches, each incorporating a shou medallion, all within double blue line borders; 6 1/16 in. (15.3 cm.) diam. Estimate $60,000 - $80,000 - Price Realized $116,500

Provenance: Hugh Moss Ltd., London, 1972.

Notes: A similar Yongzheng dish of the same size is illustrated by R. Kerr, Chinese Ceramics: Porcelain of the Qing Dynasty, 1644-1911, Victoria & Albert Museum, 1986, pl. 86. One in the Shanghai Museum of Art is illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, Selected Ceramics from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. J.M. Hu, Hong Kong, 1989, pl. 48; and another is illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, Ch'ing Porcelain from the Wah Kwong Collection, Hong Kong 1973, no. 87. See, also, the dish sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 30 May 2006, lot 1433.

The auspicious scene depicted on the interior invokes the traditional Chinese birthday greeting: 'May your happiness be as deep as the Eastern Sea, and may you live to be as old as the Southern Mountains.' For a discussion of this motif, see Terese Tse Bartholomew, 'Botanical Puns in Chinese Art from the Collection of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco', Orientations, September 1985, pp. 18-34, where a similar dish is illustrated, fig. 24.

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art Part I & II,  15 - 16 September 2011. New York, Rockefeller Plaza. www.christies.com