Lot 2803. A doucai 'birthday' dish, Yongzheng six-character mark in underglaze-blue and of the period (1723-1735); 6 1/8 in. (15.7cm.) diam. Estimate HKD 400,000 - HKD 600,000. Price realised HKD 500,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019

The dish is finely painted in the interior with five iron-red bats, wufu, flying around a fruiting peach tree growing from the side of a cliff that overhangs a blue rock rising from breaking green waves. The exterior is painted with pairs of bats alternating with four fruiting branches, each incorporating a Shou medallion, all within double blue line borders, box.

Provenance: Sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 25 October 1993, lot 850.

Note: Similar examples bearing Yongzheng marks are found in museums and private collections worldwide, including one in the Victoria & Albert Museum, illustrated by Rose Kerr, Chinese Ceramics, Porcelain of the Qing Dynasty, 1644-1911, London, 1986, no. 86; one smaller (11.3 cm.) in the Shanghai Museum of Art, illustrated in Selected Ceramics from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. J.M. Hu, Hong Kong, 1989, no. 48; one illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, Ch’ing Porcelain from the Wah Kwong Collection, Hong Kong, 1973, no. 87; and several sold at auctions, such as one sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 27 November 2013, lot 3430; and another sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 6 October 2015, lot 149.