A very rare yellow-ground blue and white dish. Yonzheng six-character mark in underglaze blue and of the period. photo Nagel Auctions

With rounded sides rising to a slightly everted rim, the interior well painted in the Ming style with two leafy branches laden with nine ripe peaches that curve around to artfully fill the space of the circular medallion, the exterior also painted in shaded underglaze blue with a freize of leafy morning glory vine bearing nine flowers and buds, all within double line borders and reserved on a ground of bright lemon-yellow enamel that also covers the base excluding the nianhao.

Provenance: Old Berlin private collection

A pair of Qianlong dishes in the same pattern from the T.Y. Chao Collection was included in the exhibition, Ch'ing Porcelain from the Wah Kwong Collection, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1973, no. 45, and later sold at Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 19 March 1987, lot 316. For further examples see one in the National Palace Museum Collection, illustrated in Blue and White Ware of the Ch'ing Dynasty, Book II, Hong Kong, 1968, pl. 29; one with a Yongzheng six-character mark similar to the present piece is in the Percival David Foundation, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol. 6, Tokyo, 1982, no. 247

Three short hairlines to rim, one overpainted otherwise good condition. D. 27 cm. Estimate 60 000 / 80 000 €

Nagel Auctions. Asian Art. November 3rd 2011. www.auction.de