Lot 66.  A Dingyao square dish, Liao-Northern Song Dynasty (1115-1126); 12.1cm (4 3/4in) wide. Estimate £ 30,000 - 40,000 (€ 35,000 - 46,000). Sold for £ 37,562 (€ 43,859). Photo Bonhams.

The four sides tapering to a roliate rim, moulded in relief in the interior with four intertwined leaves beneath individually-fluted petals, covered overall with a rich creamy white glaze ecept for the base, revealing the high-fired biscuit body.

Provenance: The Honorable Mr. Justice Robert Tang Kwok-ching, SBS, The Xiwenguozhai Collection, Hong Kong
Marchant, London
A London private collection.

Published and Illustrated: Marchant, Chinese Ceramics Han to Song, London, 2018, no.11.

Note: The shape of this dish imitates gold and silver wares and the decorations is also reminiscent of high relief repoussé decoration on gold and silver wares. A shard of Ding square dish of similar form but decorated with a pair of confronted butterflies was found at the Ding kiln site and illustrated in Selection of Ding Ware-the Palace Museum's Collection and Archaeological Excavation, Beijing, 2012, pp.68-9, no.20.fig.1.

A set of six slightly smaller dishes of this design with similar fluting in the cavetto was included by Y.Inouye, N.Maesaka and K.Nakamura, in the exhibition Ceramics of the Liao Dynasty: formerly The Hayashibara Museum Collection, Tokyo, 2012, no.131; another related dish with four flutes and gently lobed corners, in the Carl Kempe Collection, Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, is illustrated by W.Watson, Tang and Liao Ceramics, Munich, 1984, p.240, no.295.

Compare with a similar pair of square Dingyao dishes, Song dynasty, which were sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 30 May 2018, lot 2925.