Lot 27. A very Rare underglaze-Blue and Yellow-Enamel 'gardenia' Dish, Mark and Period of Jiajing  (1522-1566); 26.2 cm., 10 1/4  in. Estimate 4,500,000 - 6,500,000 HKD. Unsold. photo Sotheby's

the shallow rounded sides rising from a high tapered foot to a gently flared rim, the slightly recessed interior freely painted in shaded tones of cobalt with a leafy branch bearing two five-petalled gardenia blooms and two tightly closed buds, encircled on the cavetto by fruiting branches of pomegranate, grape, peach and a ribbon-tied lotus bouquet, all between double-line borders, the underside with a continuous floral scroll of large blooming roses borne on a foliate stem, between double lines at the rim and foot, all reserved on a deep yellow enamel ground, the convex base glazed white and inscribed in underglaze blue with a six-character reign mark within a double ring.

PROVENANCE: Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 12th/13th May 1976, lot 59.
C.C. Lai, Toronto, 1984.
Collection of the Reach Family.
Eskenazi Ltd, London, 1989.

EXHIBITED: Exhibition of Fine Chinese Antiques and Works of Art, C.C. Lai, Toronto, 1984.
Chinese Art from the Reach Family Collection, Eskenazi Ltd., London, 1989, cat. no. 42 (illustrated).

LITERATURE: Margaret Medley, Ruizi Jiazu shoucang de gudai Zhongguo yishu pin zhanlan pingjie [Review of the exhibition of ancient Chinese art objects from the Reach Family collection], Gugong Wenwu Jikan/National Palace Museum Monthly of Chinese Art, no. 89, 1990, p. 51, fig. 7.
Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 2, no. 684.

NOTE: Dishes of this design are also known with Xuande, Chenghua, Hongzhi and Zhengde reign marks, but Jiajing examples are particularly rare. Only two other dishes of this design of Jiajing mark and period appear to have been published; one in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is illustrated in Minji meihin zuroku [Illustrated catalogue of important Ming porcelains], Tokyo, 1977-78, vol. 3, pl. 29; the other was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 5th/6th November 1997, lot 1036.

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection, Part V - An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains. Hong Kong | 08 avr. 2013