Lot 3120. A blue and sancai-glazed tripod dish, Tang Dynasty (618-907); 11 3/8 in. (29 cm.) diam. Estimate HKD 80,000 - HKD 100,000. Price Realised HKD 187,500. © Christie's Images Ltd 2021.

The shallow dish, with everted rim, is raised on three cabriole supports, and is stamped in the interior with a central stylized flower head encircled by eight conjoined petals. The decoration is picked out in deep blue, leaf green, amber and cream glazes, and reserved on a slightly green-toned straw glaze that continues over the rim to cover the sides, and also covers the supports.

Provenance: Dr. Henry De Laszlo Collection
Sold at Christie's New York, 2 December 1993, lot 250
Sold at Christie’s New York, 13-14 September 2012, lot 1383.

Note: Compare slightly smaller dishes with the same decoration: in the Idemitsu Museum of Art, illustrated by Koyama, Chugoku Toji, vol. I, Tokyo, 1987, pl. 21; illustrated by H. Scott, The Golden Age of Chinese Art, The Lively T'ang Dynasty, Rutland, Vermont/Tokyo, 1967, pl. 83; by C. Riely, Chinese Art from the Cloud Wampler and Other Collections in the Everson Museum, Everson Museum of Art, 1968, pl. 20; and in Mayuyama, Seventy Years, Tokyo, 1976, vol. I, no. 279.
In 'Metalwork and Chinese Ceramics', PDF Monograph Series No. 2, London, 1972, Margaret Medley, p. 6, explains that dishes and plates with flattened rims, found both in silver and in stamped polychrome-glazed pottery, ranging from the late 7th-early 8th centuries, were inspired by Iranian metalwork. The author cites an example illustrated by J.J. Smirnoff in L'Argenterie Orientale, St. Petersburg, 1909, pl. 77.

The result of Oxford Authentication Ltd thermoluminescence test no. C112m29 (1 November 2012) is consistent with the dating of this lot.

Christie's. Pavilion Online – Chinese Art, 27 May-11 June 2021