Lot 20. A famille-verte 'birthday' dish, Mark and period of Kangxi (1662-1722). Diameter 9⅞ in., 25.1 cm. Estimate: 8,000 - 12,000 USD. Lot sold: Lot sold: 107,100 USD. © Sothebys. 

the base with a six-character mark in underglaze blue within a double circle.

Literature: Rose Kerr et al., Chinese Antiquities from the Wou Kiuan Collection. Wou Lien-Pai Museum, Hong Kong, 2011, pl. 133. 

Note: The present dish is a rare example of a group of finely potted and painted 'birthday' dishes, featuring auspicious themes of longevity, made at the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen, most likely to commemorate the Kangxi Emperor's (r. 1662-1722) sixtieth birthday in 1713. 

Compare another 'birthday dish' with the same subject of Magu together with a spotted deer and cart from the Qing Court Collection, illustrated in Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1989, pl. 52 and another first sold at Christie's London, 12th December 1977, lot 199 and again in their Hong Kong rooms, 3rd November 1996, lot 589, illustrated in Anthony du Boulay, Christie's Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics, Oxford, 1984, p. 227, pl.2.