Well potted with a channelled foot, the interior finely enamelled with a scene of a young scholar surrounded by his attendant and two senior monks in a temple spurring a courageous and strong monk holding a rod, all surrounded by a band of six shaped panels enclosing qin, qi, shu, hua and antiques, the underside with a blue and white mark painted within a double circle.

Provenance: Bonhams London, 5 November 2007, lot 209.
An English private collection. 

Note: The scene painted on the present lot is from Act II of the Romance of the Western Chamber, 'The Alert at the Monastery'. The young scholar Zhang Junrui standing in the centre has given the fighting monk Huiming, with the rod, a letter asking General Du Que for his help against the bandits who have surrounded the monastery and are trying to seize Zhang's lover, Cui Yingying. See a bowl with the same scene, illustrated and explained by C.J.A.Jorg, Famille Verte: Chinese Porcelain in Green Enamels, Amsterdam, 2011, p.99. The same scene can also be seen on a large dish in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (acc.no.C.466).

A similar dish with the same theme was sold at Christie's New York, 27 January 2014, lot 355.