Large serving dish with flowers and waves. Porcelain with underglaze cobalt-blue decoration. Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province 江西省, 景德鎮. Ming dynasty, Yongle reign, AD1403–1424. Sir Percival David Foundation. PDF A663. British Museum. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Large porcelain dish. Underglaze blue with band of scrolling flowers around inside and outside, with a large central roundel with four large scrolling flowers in the centre. Band of waves on the flattened rim. Base unglazed. Height: 76 millimetres. Diameter: 400 millimetres.

Potters working at Jingdezhen used a blue-generating cobalt pigment imported from the Middle East or Central Asia at this time. It diffuses in patches through the transparent glaze and after cooling appears black where it has burnt through the glaze and pale blue where it is thin. Serving dishes of this type were exported to Southeast Asia, India and the Middle East. These dishes were more suited to foreign dining than Chinese cuisine, which requires a variety of smaller bowls and containers.