Dish with hollyhocks and gardenias, Qing dynasty, Yongzheng reign mark and period (1723-1735), Jiangxi province, Jingdezhen. Porcelain with lead-silicate enamels over colorless clear glaze. H x Diam (overall): 4.4 x 17.2 cm. Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment, Freer Gallery of Art, F1928.3a-e.

During the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), emperors sometimes ordered court artists to decorate porcelains, a practice that intensified the aesthetic link between paintings and ceramics. The depiction of branches of cut flowers isolated from a garden environment is a conventional image for summer borrowed from handscroll paintings of the seasons. Chinese painters often inscribed their works with poetry. This dish also bears a poem, which begins: "On a beautiful day, the fragrant clusters display auspicious colors."