Lot 815. A rare Early Ming blue and white ‘Lotus Bouquet’ dish, Yongle period (1403-1425); 12½ in. (30.8 cm.) diam. Estimate USD 150,000 – USD 200,000. Price Realized USD389,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2014

The dish is decorated in rich cobalt blue characteristically ‘heaped and pile’ with a central ribbon-tied lotus plant bouquet incorporating saggitaria and a stalk of millet, encircled by a band of composite foliate scroll composed of thirteen blossoms. A narrow band of classic scroll at the rim is repeated on the exterior above a similar frieze and a border of key fret. All are within line borders and the base is unglazed. 

Provenance: Mr. and Mrs. John Vincent Collection, Berkeley, California.
Louis Pappas Oriental Arts, San Francisco, 1964.
John Yeon Collection, Portland, Oregon.

Note: The design on this dish is typically described as ‘lotus bouquet,’ as the majority of the flowers, pods and leaves belong to the auspicious lotus plant. However, the bouquet also includes additional auspicious plants, such as the arrow-shapedsaggitaria sagittifolia, a symbol of both generosity and of food in a time of shortage, and a stalk of millet, symbolizing an abundance of grain. Dishes with this ‘lotus bouquet’ design belong to an important group of early Ming blue and white wares, together with ‘grape’ dishes, ‘melon’ dishes, and ‘dragon’ dishes. See J.A. Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, Washington, D.C., 1956, p. 92, where he discusses the thirty-four ‘bouquet’ dishes of varying size and with varying borders in the Ardebil Collection, showing the wide range of intensity of cobalt within the dishes and the diversity of decoration. Some of these variations can be seen, ibid, on pls. 30 and 31.
A dish of this shape and design was excavated from the Yongle stratum of the site of the imperial kiln at Jingdezhen in 1994, and is illustrated in Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1996, pp. 144-5, no. 40. Compare, also, two other dishes of this pattern, but of slightly larger size: one in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, (34.2 cm. diam.), illustrated in Porcelain of the National Palace Museum: Blue-and-White ware of the Ming Dynasty, Book II, Part 2, Hong Kong, 1963, pp. 146-7, pl. 59; and one in The Tianminlou Foundation, (34.7 cm. diam.), illustrated in the catalogue of the Min Chiu Society exhibition, Joined Colors, Sackler Gallery, Washington, DC, 1993, p. 78, no. 7.

Christie’s. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART, 18 – 19 September 2014, New York, Rockefeller Plaza.