Lot 233. An important large Dingyao carved 'dragon' dish, Northern Song dynasty (960-1127), 11 7/8 in. (30.2 cm.) diam. Estimate GBP 200,000 - GBP 300,000. Price Realized GBP 505,250 © Christie's Images Ltd 2011

The interior freely carved across the centre with a writhing dragon, the scales naturalistically defined and the head and claws finely outlined, all under an even ivory glaze pooling slightly on the exterior, the rim left unglazed with a copper mount, fitted box.

Provenance: Cunliffe Collection, no. TT28
Sotheby's London, 15 April 1980, Lot 155

Note: This magnificent Ding ware dish is rare and important both for its size and for its carved decoration of a powerful writhing longdragon. Long dragons (as opposed to chi dragons) are rare on all Northern Song dynasty ceramics, even those destined for the court. However, it is significant that amongst the excavated Ru wares, which were made for the court at the first truly imperial kiln, a small number of pieces have been found with carved decoration of dragons. Two bowls have been published - one with a dragon in the interior and another with a dragon on the exterior (illustrated by Henan Provincial Cultural Relics Research Institute in Ruyao de xin faxian, Beijing, 1991, pls. 21-24). There are strong similarities between the carved long dragons on these Ru vessels and the dragon on the current large Ding ware dish. This dish was made at a time when the Ding kilns were at their height in terms of the quality of their products and also their popularity at court. It seems very likely that this dish was one of those fine Ding wares destined for the court of the Northern Song emperor.

Although a limited number of Ding ware dishes are known with moulded designs of dragons amongst clouds, such as the dish in the collection of the Shanghai Museum (illustrated in Shanghai Bowuguan suocang - Zhongguo taoci mingpin zhan, 1995, p. 37, no. 22), Ding wares with carved long dragons are even more rare. Fragments of Ding ware dishes with carved designs of dragons have been found at the kilns site of Jiancicun, Quyangxian, Hebei province. One of these fragments was published in Wenwu, 1965, vol. 6, pl. 1:9, while another is illustrated in Kiln Sites of Ancient China - Recent Finds of Pottery and Porcelain, London, 1980, p. 149, pl. 329. A Ding ware cup with carved dragon decoration on the exterior was excavated in 1981 in the southern part of the Quyang xian kiln site (illustrated in Zhongguo wenwu jinghua daquan- Taoci juan, Taipei, 1993, 266, 318).

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, 10 May 2011, London, King Street