The dish is decorated in the center with a dragon and phoenix reserved on a ground of leafy floral scroll. The cavetto is similarly decorated with two pairs of dragons and phoenixes and the reverse is decorated with a broad band of floral scroll, cloth box.

Provenance: Eskenazi Ltd., London, January 1986, no. 9526.
The Lenora and Walter F. Brown Collection, San Antonio, Texas.

Literature: Amy Lewis Hofland and Shiyuan Yuan, Texas Collects Asia, Dallas, 2008, p. 169, no. 52.

Exhibited: Dallas, The Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art, Texas Collects Asia, 12 July-28 September 2008, no. 52.

Note: An almost identical Wanli dish of comparable size in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 38 - Porcelains in Polychrome and Contrasting Colours, Hong Kong, 1999, no. 50. Another nearly identical Wanli dish is illustrated in Illustrated Catalogues of Tokyo National Museum: Chinese Ceramics, Tokyo, 1965, p. 130, no. 536. A smaller (9 3/8 in. diam.) Wanli wucai 'dragon and phoenix’ dish from the Art Institute of Chicago was sold at Christie’s New York, 12 September, 2019 lot 709.

Christie's. Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, New York, 25 September 2020