A fine and rare biscuit-decorated 'Dragon' dish, Mark and period of Hongzhi. Photo: Sotheby's. 

incised in fine lines into the biscuit on the interior with a central medallion enclosing a writhing five-clawed dragon suspended amidst clouds, the exterior similarly decorated with two dragons against a ground of tumultuous waves crashing against jagged rocks, the dragons reserved against an unctuous milky-white glazed ground, their unglazed bodies and the clouds burnt russet in the firing, the recessed base centred with an underglaze-blue six-character reign mark encircled by a double ring; 22.7 cm., 8 7/8  in. Estimation 500,000 — 700,000 HKD (50,299 - 70,418 EUR) 

Provenance: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 10th April 2006, lot 1616. 

A closely related dish was sold in these rooms, 25th April 2004, lot 275. Dishes of this type, but of slightly smaller size, include one in the National Palace Museum, published in Porcelain of the National Palace Museum. Monochrome Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Book 2, Hong Kong, 1968, pl. 2; another in the British Museum, London, illustrated in Jessica Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics, London, 2001, pl. 7:3; and a third in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, included in Suzanne G. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989, pl. 155. Two further related dishes were sold in these rooms, the first from the Edward T. Chow collection, 19th May 1981, lot 444, and again, 17th May 1988, lot 10, and the second, 8th April 2013, lot 3178.  

For a Hongzhi mark and period bowl similarly decorated dragons reserved in biscuit against a white ground, one in the centre and a further two on the exterior, see one illustrated in John Ayers, Chinese Ceramics in the Baur Collection, vol. 1, Geneva, 1999, pl. 68; another in the Idemitsu Museum, included in the exhibition In Pursuit of the Dragon: Traditions and Transitions in Ming Ceramics, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, 1988, cat. no. 35; and a third bowl sold at Christie's New York, 16th/17th September 2010, lot 1363. There is another example in the present sale, see lot 227. 

Sotheby's. Important Ming Porcelain from a Private Collection. Hong Kong | 08 oct. 2013. http://www.sothebys.com