Lot 2229. A Ding moulded 'Twin-Fish' dish, Song dynasty (960–1279); 6 1/4 in. (16 cm.) diam. Estimate HKD 350,000 - HKD 450,000. Price realised HKD 437,500 © Christie's Images Limited 2013

The dish is finely and crisply moulded with a pair of fish in the central medallion amid rolling waves extending into the well where four ducks swim beside lotus and water weeds, all below a keyfret border. The exterior is plain, all covered in an even pale ivory glaze. The rim is bound in a yellow metal mount, box.

Provenance: Sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 3 November 1998, lot 902. 

Note: A dish of almost identical design, also fitted with a yellow metal mount, is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei and illustrated in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Ting Ware White Porcelain, Taipei, 1987, no. 107. Another Ding bowl of this pattern, but of slightly larger size (20.1 cm.) in the Victoria and Albert Museum is illustrated by Jessica Rawson, Chinese Ornament, The Lotus and the Dragon, fig. 101. Two examples from the Nanjing Museum, and one from the Beijing Palace Museum, are illustrated in Zhongguo Taoci Quanji, vol. 9, nos. 87, 88, 127 respectively, as is a mould, no. 129, although none are as crisply decorated nor as fine in condition.

Christie's. Imperial Sale; Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Hong Kong, HKCEC Grand Hall, 29 May 2013