A famille-verte ‘Peach and Longevity’ dish, Mark and period of Kangxi. Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2014

sturdily potted with shallow rounded sides rising from a tapered foot to a slightly everted rim, brightly enamelled on the interior with a large pale mindaro peach with a brownish-peach tip borne on a branch issuing lanceolate leaves of varying degrees of green, inscribed on the fruit with the gilt-characters wan shou ('Longevity'), the exterior similarly painted with three peach sprays with shou characters in gilt, the countersunk base inscribed in underglaze blue with a six-character reign mark within a double-circle; 29.1 cm., 11 1/2 in. Estimate 500,000 — 700,000 HKD

Provenance: Acquired before 1984.
Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 8th April 2011, lot 3158

Note: Dishes of this design are rare although one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in Kangxi. Yongzheng. Qianlong. Qing Imperial Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1989, p. 70, pl. 53; another from the Sir Percival David collection, and now in the British Museum, London, is published in Oriental Ceramics. The World's Great Collections, vol. 6, Tokyo, 1982, pl. 218; and a third example was sold in our London rooms, 5th December 1995, lot 306.

Dishes of this type were made for the Kangxi emperor as ten thousand longevities could only be designated for the emperor and empresses of China. Wanshou, which means 'ten thousand longevities', written inside a peach represents the wish, 'May the immortal peach grant you longevity (wanshou wujiang)'.

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art. Hong Kong | 08 Apr 2014 -www.sothebys.com