A rare large blue and white 'melon' dish. Yongle

The central medallion painted in vivid cobalt blue with characteristic 'heaping and piling' with a leafy fruiting and flowering melon plant growing from the undulating ground, encircled by a composite floral scroll around the rounded cavetto including chrysanthemum, pomegranate, peony, lotus, camellia and rose, the flattened everted rim with a wave border with crests reserved in white, the underside with six fruiting sprays of cherry, gingko, peach, lychee, grape and pomegranate, the unglazed base with a drilled undeciphered Arabic inscription (significant loss and restoration to the rim and sides). 43cm (16¾in) diam. Sold for £26,400

Exhibited: The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, circa 1987.
Linden Museum, Stuttgart, circa 1993.

Note: Large Yongle-period dishes of this design are rare. Similar dishes are in the collections of the Palace Museum, Beijing; the Topkapi Saray, Istanbul; the Ardebil Shrine Collection, now in the Archaeological Museum, Teheran; and in the British Museum, London. For a similar dish excavated in the Yongle stratum at Dongmentou, Zhushan, Jingdezhen, in 1994, see Chang Foundation, Jingdezhen chutu Ming chu guanyao ciqi, Taipei, 1996, Catalogue no.46. For a smaller example from the S.C. Ko Tianminlou collection, see Hong Kong Museum of Art, Chinese Porcelain: The S.C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, part I, Hong Kong, 1987, Catalogue no.9.

This dish bears a rare drilled Arabic inscription on the unglazed base, almost identical to one found on early 15th century blue and white dishes from the Ardebil Shrine. J.A. Pope in Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, London, 1981, p.12, notes that in 1611 Shah Abbas donated to the Ardebil Shrine 1,162 pieces. According to Pope, in addition to porcelain pieces bearing marks identifying the pieces with the Shrine of Sheikh Safi and with the vaqf of 1611, there were others bearing marks which seem to indicate private ownership. Of the latter Pope states that: 'It appears likely that the pieces bearing these names and signs had belonged to various individuals at one time or another and that they had made their way into the royal collection in earlier times or that, when they belonged to persons who were contemporary with Shah Abbas, they had been given to him so they could be added to the vaqf and their owners could thus share in the spiritual rewards to be gained from the pious donation.' See J.A.Pope, op.cit., pp.51 and 58 (fig.29.88).

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