Lot 26. A Fine Large Blue and White 'Roses' Dish, Ming Dynasty, Yongle Period (1403-1425), 37.5 cm., 14 3/4 in. Estimate 3,000,000 — 5,000,000 HKD. Lot sold 7,220,000 HKD. Photo Sotheby's

the interior centred with a large medallion containing two blossoming roses and a rose bud borne on a leafy branch, encircled by a continuous peony scroll on the cavetto and a 'classic' scroll on the everted lipped rim, the exterior painted with a continuous lotus scroll on the rounded sides beneath a plain rim, the base and the footring left unglazed.

Literature: Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 2, no. 660.

Note: This dish, with its graceful flower design executed in graded shades of cobalt blue exemplifies the subtie porcelain painting style that is characteristic of the Yongle reign. Five dishes 0f this otherwise rare design with a stem oftwo roses in the centre, are today in the National Museum of Iran, Tehran, from the Ardabil Shrine, see John Alexander Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, Washington, D.C., 1956, pI. 32 bottom right, and Misugi Takatoshi, Chinese Porcelain Collections in the NearEast: Topkapi and Ardebil, Hong Kong, 1981, vol. III, pI. A.33 (fig. 1); one from the collection of King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden, now in the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, is published in Oriental Ceramics. The World’s Great Collections, Tokyo, New York, San Francisco, 1980-82, vol. 8, no. 214; another was included in the Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Ceramics, Kau Chi Society of Chinese Art, The Art Gallery, The Chinese University 0f Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1981, cat. no. 64. And a very sirnilar dish with ten small chrysanthemum sprays replacing the scroll border on the rim is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, llustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red, Shanghai, 2000, vol. 1, pI. 55 (fig. 2).

fig. 1. Blue-and-white dish with a stem of roses, Yongle period, Ardabil Shrine, National Museum of Iran, Tehran

fig. 2. Blue-and-white dish with a stem of roses, Yongle period, Palace Museum, Beijing

A dish painted in a very similar style but with a curled peony spray in the centre, lotus scroll around the weIl and flowering and fruiting sprigs at the rim was recovered from the Yongle stratum of the Ming imperial kiln site, see Jingdezhen Zhushan chutu Yongle guanyao ciqi [Yongle Imperial porcelain excavated at Zhushan, Jingdezhen], Capital Museum, Beijing, 2007, cat. no. 73; two dishes of this design were also among the Ardabil porcelains, now in Tehran, see Pope, op.cit., pI. 32 top.

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection, Part II - An Important Selection of Chinese Porcelains. Hong Kong 5 october 2011