Lot 3037. An extremely rare and large blue and white lobed dish, Hongwu period (1368-1398); 18 ¼ in. (46.4 cm.) diam. Estimate HKD 2,000,000 - HKD 3,000,000. Price realised HKD 2,500,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

The dish is painted at the centre with the flowers of the four seasons, pomegranate, peony, camelia and chrysanthemum, encircling a single lotus spray and surrounded by the cavetto moulded with sixteen bracket-shaped flutes, each decorated with a lotus spray. The exterior is similarly painted with lotus sprays below a band of waves at rim.

Provenance: A Japanese private collection, Kyoto, acquired between 1920-1930.

Note: The present dish is an extremely rare example of large blue and white lobed dishes from the Hongwu period, and it seems to be the only dish of this type that has appeared at auction recently. The only other example from this group of the same pattern was excavated at Zhushan Jingdezhen, and is illustrated in Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain excavated at Jingdezhen, Taipei, 1996, pp. 116-117, no. 26 (45.6 cm. diam.)(fig. 1). The Qing Court collection has a few similar dishes with lobed rims but different decorations. The closest examples are two dishes with the same subsidiary motifs but chrysanthemums to the centre in blue and white, one is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, accession number: guci-016610 (44.5 cm. diam.)(fig. 2), the other is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red (I), Hong Kong, 2000, p. 23, no. 21 (45.5 cm. diam.). Compare also to two further lobed dishes painted with composite floral sprays on the cavetto and exterior, and a band of classic scroll on the everted rim, one with peonies and chrysanthemum to the centre (44.8 cm. diam.), the other larger and with peonies and rock to the centre (55.8 cm. diam.), see ibid., nos. 20 and 22, respectively. The underglaze-blue decoration on the present dish is of a rich and even dark blue tone, a quality that is rarely seen on Hongwu blue and white dishes which tend to have a duller and blackish tone.

fig. 1. A blue and white lobed dish, Hongwu period (1368-1398), excavated at Zhushan Jingdezhen, Collection of Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute.

fig. 2. A blue and white lobed dish, Hongwu period (1368-1398), Collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing.

Large lobed dishes from the Hongwu period were also decorated using underglaze-red, often with a similar pattern to that found on the blue and white counterpart. See for example, a dish painted with nearly identical subsidiary bands but with chrysanthemum to the centre (45.2 cm. diam.) from the Manno Art Museum, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 28 October 2002, lot 525 (fig. 3), then acquired by the Meiyintang Collection, and sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 7 April 2011, lot 43.

fig. 3. From the Collection of Montague Meyer, the Manno Art Museum, Osaka (no. 439) & the Meiyintang Collection. An outstanding Underglaze-Red Chrysanthemum Dish, Ming Dynasty, Hongwu period (1368-1398); 45.5 cm., 17 7/8 in. Estimate 25,000,000—35,000,000 HKD. Lot Sold 40,980,000 HKD at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 7 April 2011, lot 43. Photo Sotheby's.

Cf. my post: Hongwu period (1368-1398) Ceramics from The Meiyintang Collection sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 07 April 2011

Christie's. Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Hong Kong, 30 November 2020