Lot 57. A pair of copper-red glazed dishes, marks and period of Yongzheng (1723-1735). Estimate HKD 100,000 — 150,000 (11,289 - 16,934 EUR). Lot Sold 500,000 HKD (56,446 EUR). Photo: Sotheby's.

each with shallow rounded sides supported on a gently tapered foot, covered overall with a rich copper-red glaze suffused with tiny bubbles and thinning to white at the rim, the slightly domed base glazed white and inscribed in underglaze-blue with the six-character mark within a double circle - 16.3 cm, 6 3/8  in.

Provenance: Collection of Dr Cheng Te-k'un (1908-2001), until 1958. 
Bluett & Sons Ltd, London, 1958.
Collection of Roger Pilkington (1928-69), from 1958 (£48).

Note: A closely related dish in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is published in the Illustrated Catalogue of Ch’ing Dynasty Porcelain in the National Palace Museum, Tokyo, 1980, vol. 1, pl. 137, together with a slightly smaller example, pl. 138; one in the Nanjing Museum, was included in the exhibition Qing Imperial Porcelain of the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong Reigns, Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1995, cat. no. 40 (top right); another of slightly larger size, from the Sir Percival David collection, and now in the British Museum, London, is included in Margaret Medley,Illustrated Catalogue of Ming and Ch’ing Monochrome, London, 1973, pl. C.505; and a fourth dish from the collection of George Eumorfopoulos, is illustrated in Edgar E. Bluett, Ming and Ch’ing Porcelains, London, 1933, cat. no. 38. A further pair of dishes was sold in our New York rooms, 21st March 1980, lot 220, and again in these rooms, 25th November 1981, lot 363.