A sancai 'lotus' tripod dish, Tang dynasty (618-906)
Lot 437. A sancai 'lotus' tripod dish, Tang dynasty (618-906); 22.9 cm, 9 in. Estimate 40,000 — 60,000. Lot Sold 212,500 HKD (27,147 USD). © Sotheby's.
with rounded sides supported on three legs and an everted rim, impressed at the centre with a large stylised lotus, all in green, chestnut and straw glaze and reserved on a dappled ground.
Exhibited: Gulbenkian Museum of Oriental Art and Archaeology, Durham (label).
Note: This flamboyant and brilliantly coloured tripod dish encapsulates the opulence of the Chinese court in the first half of the Tang dynasty. The luxuriant lotus flowers embody the spirit of Buddhism, so popular at the time.
A similar tripod dish, excavated at Luoyang, is illustrated in Zhongguo wenwu jinghua daquan: Taoci juan [Gems of China's cultural relics, ceramics section], Taipei, 1993, p. 130, fig. 452. See also an example from the Arthur M. Sackler collection, offered in our New York rooms, 19th September 2002, lot 59. Compare also sancai tripod dishes of the same form but differing designs, such as one decorated with geese in the Tokyo National Museum Collection, illustrated in Illustrated Catalogues of Tokyo National Museum- Chinese Ceramics, Tokyo, 1965, pl. 100, and another sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 1st June 2016, lot 3105. A Tang sancai basin with similar luxuriant decoration of a central stylised lotus encircled by star-shaped petals, from the collections of Mr and Mrs Eugene Bernat, Dr Ip Yee and T.Y. Chao, was sold in these rooms, 29th November 2018, lot 309.