Lot 417. A rare blue, amber and cream-glazed pottery tripod dish, Tang dynasty (618-907); 11½ in. (29.2 cm.) diam. Estimate USD 70,000 - USD 80,000. Price realised USD 86,500. © Christie's Image Ltd 2008  

The shallow dish with upright sides rising to a lipped rim, the center impressed with a flower head with six petals formed by conjoined leaves surrounded by a resist-spotted ground in amber and cream below a blue and cream resist-spotted ground in the well and on the rim, the exterior covered with a blue glaze that also covers the three loop feet and part of the otherwise unglazed flat base. 

Provenance: Acquired from Oriental Art Gallery, London, c. 1995. 

Note: This unusual dish is similar to one previously in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Clark and now in the Meiyintang Collection illustrated by R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 3 (I), London, 2006, pp. 251-2, no. 1272. The central flower-head motif is somewhat different on the two, but the resist-dotted amber field, resist-dotted blue on the rim, blue on the exterior and the three loop supports are very similar. In describing the Clark dish, D. Lion-Goldschmidt and Moreau-Gobard, Chinese Art: Bronzes, Jades, Sculpture, Ceramics, New York, 1966, p. 238, no. 171, refer to it as "one of the most beautiful of all known glazed dishes".

The result of Oxford thermoluminescence test no. 766b80 is consistent with the dating of this lot. 

Christie's. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART, 17 September 2008, New York, Rockefeller Plaza