A small wucai dish, Wanli mark and period (1573-1620)
Lot 261. A small wucai dish, Wanli mark and period (1573-1620). Diameter 4 7/8 in., 12.6 cm. Estimate 15,000 — 20,000 USD. Lot sold 43,750 USD. Photo Sotheby's
colorfully painted in the central medallion with two figures in a landscape, each carrying a lantern, encircled by a band of scrolling chrysanthemum within the cavetto, the blossoms in varying colors of underglaze blue, iron red, yellow and aubergine enamels, the underside with auspicious emblems alternating with canopied symbols, six-character mark in underglaze blue within a double circle.
Provenance: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 20th November 1985, lot 42, and thence by descent.
Note: A pair of similar dishes from the collection of Christina Loke Balsara, on loan to the Gulbenkian Museum of Oriental Art, Durham, is illustrated in Laszlo Legeza, 'Ming and Ch'ing Imperial Tou-Ts'ai and Wu-Ts'ai Porcelains', Arts of Asia January-February 1980, p. 105. pl. 12 and p. 106, col. pl. 12. Another pair of dishes of this pattern from the Edward T. Chow collection was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 25th November 1980, lot 30.
Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, New York, 11 september 2012