Lot 2163. A pair of iron-red-decorated blue and white 'dragon' dishes, Qianlong seal marks in underglaze blue and of the period (1736-1795); 6 7/8 in. (17.5 cm.) diam. Estimate USD 25,000 - USD 35,000. Price Realized USD 118,750. © Christie's Images Ltd 2014.  

Each has rounded sides that rise to a slightly everted rim, and is decorated on the interior with a roundel of an iron-red dragon leaping against a ground of wind-tossed waves and on the exterior with a similar frieze of nine dragons below a narrow border of demi-florets, wood stands. 

Note: Compare two dishes of this pattern, one illustrated in Ch'ing Porcelain from the Wah Kwong Collection, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1973, no. 70, the other in The Arts of the Ch'ing Dynasty, Oriental Ceramic Society, London, 1964, no. 235. See, also, the example included in Illustrated Catalogue of Old Oriental Ceramics Donated by Mr. Yokogawa, Tokyo, 1953, no. 363.

A fine example of this type, from the Greenwald Collection, illustrated by G. M. Greenwald in The Greenwald Collection, Two Thousand Years of Chinese Ceramics, 1996, p. 57, was sold at Christie's New York, 24-25 March 2011, lot 1784. See, also, another dish of this type, from the Yiqingge Collection sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 29 May 2013, lot 2016.

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, New York, 20 - 21 March 2014