The deep, slightly flared sides subtly molded as eight petals rising to a slightly everted rim, painted in rich tones of underglaze blue with a central medallion of fish swimming amidst water weeds repeated in a frieze on the exterior, the edges of the unglazed foot rim burnt orange in the firing, box and stand.

Provenance: Bluett & Sons, London.  

Note: While a number of dishes with this design are known, brushwashers are very rare. A blue and white Jiajing brushwasher of similar size, shape and decoration to the Falk example is in the collection of the National Palace Museum, and illustrated in Porcelain of the National Palace Museum - Blue-and-White Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Book V, Hong Kong, 1963, pp. 62-3, pl. 21. And another is illustrated in Chinese Porcelain, The S.C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1987, Part I, no. 41. This design can also be seen on an earlier Xuande-marked example in the collection of Peter Boode, illustrated in the International Exhibition of Chinese Art, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1935-6, no. 1468. This design was also used to decorate underglaze blue shallow dishes in the Jiajing reign as can be seen from two slightly different examples in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Blue and White Porcelain with Underglaze Red (II), Hong Kong, 2000, pp. 138-9, nos. 127-8, which in turn copied dishes of the Xuande reign, like the example in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in volume (I) of the same series, p. 144, no. 136, and the example, which is very close to the Falk brushwasher, excavated from the site of the imperial kiln at Jingdezhen in 1993 and illustrated in Jingdezhen chutu Yuan Ming guanyao ciqi, Beijing, 1999, p. 198, no. 160.

Fish have been a favorite motif for Chinese ceramic decorators for centuries because the word for fish (yu) is a homonym for the word for abundance or plenty. The particular design on the Falk brushwasher, however, provides an additional, more complex rebus since the fish depicted are intended to represent a mullet, sole, bream and perch. The names for these fish in Chinese are pronounced qing, bai, lian and gui, which combine to sound like the phrase qingbai liangui, meaning 'of good descent, modest and honorable'. Thus, if presented as a gift, such a brushwasher would pay a most gracious compliment to the recipient.