A fine and rare blue and white lotus bouquet dish, China, Yongle period. Photo Nagel

Well potted with low rounded sides, painted in underglaze cobalt-blue with ‘heaping and piling’ effect, the centre vividly decorated with a bouquet of lotus in bud and full bloom, together with leaves on slender stems, seed pods, an arrowhead leaf, a millet stem and long thin rush leaves, all tied together with a long swirling ribbon, within a triple line border, the well decorated with thirteen blooms comprising two chrysanthemums, two lotus, two roses, two peonies, a pomegranate flower, two hibiscus-like flowers and two camellias, all borne on an undulating continuous leafy stem, below a wave band at the rim, the underside with matching composite flower scroll with fourteen blooms all between bands of classic scroll above and keyfret below, the shallow bevelled foot encircling the unglazed base.Dishes of this pattern painted with a wave band around the rim appear in various sizes and vary in the treatment of the decoration. The present dish is unusually small in size, and all the other dishes of this type appear to be larger. Good condition. D. 28 cm - Estimate 150 000/200 000 €

One such dish in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, was included in the Museum’s special exhibition Mingdai Chunian Ciqi Tezhan, 1982, cat. no. 39; another was included in the exhibition Ming Blue-and-White, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1949, cat. no. 39; and one from the collection of Edward T. Chow was sold in our London rooms, 9th June, 1992, lot 229.

These dishes were also exported to the Middle East, where they were highly appreciated and treasured, see Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, 1956, where seven dishes of this type are listed, of which three are illustrated, pls. 30 and 31 top and bottom left, offered by Shah Abbas the Great of Persia to the Ardebil Shrine in 1611; and Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. II, 1994, no. 66, this dish belonged apparently to the Mughal court in the 17th and 18th century.

Nagel. "Asian Art". 2012/11/02 http://www.auction.de/