A rare small biscuit-decorated Longquan celadon petal-lobed dish, Yuan dynasty (1279-1368). Estimate $15,000 – $25,000. Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2015.

The shallow dish with chrysanthemum petal-lobed rim is covered overall with a glaze of soft sea-green color except for the sprig molded biscuit decoration of two cranes in flight between two clouds on the interior. 5 ¼ in. (13.3 cm.) diam., Japanese wood box

Provenance: Private collection, Japan, acquired in the 1980s.

Notes: This rare dish is similar to two other published examples of larger size, one (6 ¾ in. diam.) in the Art Institute of Chicago, illustrated by Sherman. E. Lee and Wai-Kam Ho, Chinese Art Under the Mongols: The Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), Cleveland Museum of Art, 1968, no. 76; the other (6 in. diam.) illustrated by Warren E. Cox, The Book of Pottery and Porcelain, vol. I, New York, c. 1944, p. 152, fig. 310. These dishes and the present dish are all decorated with cranes and clouds left in the biscuit so that they have fired to a reddish brown in contrast to the celadon glaze, and all have molded chrysanthemum petals that form the well and rim. A similar chrysanthemum-petal rim can also be seen on a dish with biscuit decoration of two phoenixes alternating with two insects in the Avery Brundage Collection, M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, illustrated by Lee and Ho, ibid., no. 75. Also illustrated, no. 78, is a related dish of barbed-petal outline decorated in biscuit relief with three birds perched on leafy branches with peaches suspended from their beaks, from the collection of the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London. Another related dish of this type, with petal-lobed rim and biscuit decoration of fruiting branches of peach, pomegranate and melon, from the collection of the British Rail Pension Fund, was sold at Sotheby's London, 12 December 1989, lot 95.

Christie's. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART, 17 - 18 September 2015, New York, Rockefeller Plaza