A rare blue and white 'grape' dish. Ming Dynasty, Yongle period.  Photo Sotheby's

of barbed form with eight brackets on the everted rim framing the central lobed medallion enclosing a grape vine bearing fruits and flowers, encircled on the cavetto with sprays of peony, lychee, chrysanthemum, peach, rose, pomegranate, camellia and loquat, and eight lingzhi sprays on the rim, the exterior with lingzhi alternating with flower sprays, the cobalt blue of soft tone, the base left unglazed; 19.5 cm., 7 5/8 in. Estimate 5,000,000-7,000,000 HKD

EXHIBITED: Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, The British Museum, London, 1994.

LITERATURE: Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 2, no. 659.

NOTE: The grape motif was very popular in the Yongle period, yet dishes of this exquisite shape and elegantly conceived design are very rare. Only three other examples appear to be recorded: one formerly in the Ardabil Shrine, Iran, and illustrated in John Alexander Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, Washington, D.C., 1956, pl. 29 bottom left, was sold in our London rooms 12th December 1978, lot 381; another is illustrated in Rysen Shh. Sgy shichij shnen kinen / Mayuyama: Seventy Years, Tokyo, 1976, vol. I, no. 750; and a third was offered in these rooms, 29th October 2001, lot 529. A fragmentary dish, reconstructed from sherds found at the waste heaps of the Ming imperial kiln site at Zhushan, Jingdezhen, was included in the exhibition Jingdezhen chutu Ming chu guanyao ciqi /Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain Excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1996, cat. no. 55, where it is suggested that the dish may have served as a stand for a cup, and a barbed cup decorated with lingzhi sprays is associated with it, cat. no. 56.

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection, Part III - An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains. Hong Kong | 04 Apr 2012, 10:15 AM www.sothebys.com