Lot 3105. A rare large sancai-glazed 'goose' tripod dish, Tang dynasty (618-907). Estimate HK$1,000,000 – HK$2,000,000 ($129,337 - $258,674). Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2016.

The shallow, circular dish is finely potted resting on three short, pad feet, crisply incised and decorated on the flat interior with a central roundel of a goose in flight encircled by radiating lotus leaves and foliate tendrils, picked out in blue, amber and green glazes, the cavetto is resist-decorated in cream against an amber and green ground which extends to the exterior and feet, stopping irregularly around the base revealing the buff body. 11 1/4 in. (28.6 cm.) diam., box

Provenance: Acquired from Wui Po Kok Antique Co., Hong Kong, 6 May 1987

Notes: A number of sancai dishes of the same design, decorated with geese against a resist-decorated ground can be found in major museum collections, including one in the Tokyo National Museum Collection, illustrated in Illustrated Catalogues of Tokyo National Museum- Chinese Ceramics, Tokyo, 1965, pl. 100; another in the Idemitsu Collection, illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1987, no. 33; one from the collection of Dr. Gustaf Lindberg, exhibted in Venice in 1954 Exhibition of Chinese Art, catalogue no. 326; one from the Royal Ontario Museum (acquisition no. ROM_2005_3840_1); one from the Victoria and Albert Museum, illustrated by Margaret Medley,T'ang Pottery & Porcelain, London, 1981, pl. 32. On p. 41 of T'ang Pottery & Porcelain, Medley notes that 'It is almost certainly silver with traced decoration that is the source for the impressed designs on the offering-trays, dishes and wrist rests'. 

Compare also to a dish of the same type was exhibted in The Silk Road, Treasures of Tang China, The Empress Place Museum, Singapore, 1991, catalogue p. 97.  

A variation of this dish includes those decorated with the same sancai goose motif but against a plain cream ground with a rounded rim, such as a dish in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York included by S. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989 (2nd ed.), p. 65, pl. 57; and one in the Freer Gallery of Art, illustrated by Medley, op. cit., pl. 31. 

Christie's. CLASSICAL CHINESE ART FROM THE SUI TO THE SONG DYNASTIES, 1 June 2016, Convention Hall