Dish with relief decoration fired in the biscuit on a monochrome blue glaze. Porcelain. Jingdezhen kilns. Yuan dynasty (1330-1368). Bequeathed by Henry J Oppenheim. 1947,0712.231. British Museum © Trustees of the British Museum

This unusual flat dish has shallow sides, an out-turned flattened rim with a rolled edge and an unglazed base. Applied in relief in the centre of the dish on a deep ink-blue monochrome glaze is a sinuous dragon and its flaming pearl. Details such as scales have been added in slip to give a more prominent profile to the dragon. Originally it may also have had gilded decoration which has worn away. The dragon's eyes are glazed too for greater realism. Diameter: 15.2 cm. Height: 1.5 cm. 

Dragons are associated with auspicious occasions such as the birth of Confucius. They are regarded as the controllers of the climate and ultimately symbolize the emperor. The quality of this dish suggests that it was made for the court. Monochrome glazed Yuan pieces like this are extremely rare. Other dishes of this type with minor variations are in the Palace Museum, Beijing, the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, the Idemitsu Museum, Tokyo, and in the former Ataka Collection. 

This style of decoration was used on other vessel shapes in the Yuan era. For example, meiping, covered jars and ink slabs are also known with white dragons on an ink-blue ground. A meiping decorated in the same style is in the Yangzhou Museum and a covered jar and ink slab were both excavated from the northern slope of Zhushan in 1988 in the Yuan strata at the imperial Yuan factory at Jingdezhen. Other designs were also executed in white on a blue ground on large dishes and yi pouring vessels. A yi pouring vessel with a flying goose with a branch in its mouth reserved in white on a monochrome blue ground is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. A large dish with lobed rim decorated with a phoenix, qilin and plants reserved in white is in the Topkapi Saray in Istanbul. Adding biscuit designs to a glazed monochrome dish is a technique which was already in use at the Longquan kilns in Zhejiang province. There red biscuit motifs contrasted with olive-green grounds.

Bibliographic reference: Harrison-Hall, Jessica, Catalogue of Late Yuan and Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, BMP, 2001