A rare blue and white  'Lingzhi' dish, Ming Dynasty, Chenghua-Hongzhi period. Estimate 400,000 — 600,000 HKD. Unsold. Photo courtesy Sotheby's

potted with shallow rounded sides rising from a tapered foot to a slightly everted rim, the interior with a slightly convex centre and decorated in underglaze blue with a medallion enclosing curling leafy stems bearing lingzhi blooms, the exterior similarly painted with a band of scrolling lingzhi stems, all between two double-line borders, the foot encircled with an additional double-line border; 26 cm., 10 1/4  in.

Provenance: Lindberg Collection, Sweden.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 28th/29th November 1978, lot 97.

Exhibition: Kiinan Vanhaa Taidetta, Helsingfors Konsthall, Helsinki, 1956, cat. no. 188.
Ming Blue-and-White, Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, 1964, cat. no. 45.

Note: The current dish is extremely rare and does not appear to have any precise counterpart in any museum or private collection. But clearly the design was preserved in the palace, as it continued to be used in the Qing period, as can be seen on a pair of Yongzheng-reign marked dishes, painted in iron-red with a near identical design, sold in these rooms, 27th April 1993, lot 115.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Works of Art, Hong Kong, 07 avr. 2015