Lot 27. A very rare large blue and white 'dragon' charger, Mark and period of Yongzheng (1723-1735); 50.5 cm, 19 7/8 in. Estimate 2,000,000 - 2,500,000 HKD. Lot sold 2,660,000 HKD. © Sotheby's 2012

the large well-potted body with shallow rounded sides rising from a slightly tapered foot to a flared rim, painted in intense cobalt blue in the slightly recessed centre with a winged, five-clawed fish-tailed dragon, the fierce and powerful creature depicted en face with open jaws and outstretched wings among scrolling peonies, writhing around a 'flaming pearl', the rounded cavetto decorated with two further five-clawed dragons striding among composite floral scrolls, below a rim border of crested waves, the reverse repeated with two dragons pacing among leafy scrolls of lotus and peony, the base left white and inscribed with a six-character reign mark within a double ring in underglaze blue. 

Provenance: Sotheby’s London, 13th December 1988, lot 250.
Christie’s Hong Kong, 26th September 1989, lot 651.

Literature: Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 2, no. 761.

Note: The pattern of this dish is vaguely based on an early Ming prototype and the stippled blue dots on flowers and leaves were added to evoke the accidental appearance of cobalt-blue specks characteristic of Yongle (AD 1403-24) blue and-white, known as ‘heaping and piling’.

It is very rare to find Yongzheng (AD 1723-35) examples of the present design, which is more frequently seen in the Qianlong period (AD 1736-95); see a dish of Qianlong mark and period, in Anthony du Boulay, Christie’s Pictorial History of Chinese Art, Oxford, 1984 p. 203, fig. 2, sold at Christie’s London, 13th December 1982, lot 569.

More common in the Yongzheng reign was a related design, with a large central dragon without wings among clouds, surrounded by four smaller dragons; an example in the National Museum of China is illustrated in Zhongguo Guojia Bowuguan guancang wenwu yanjiu congshu/Studies on the Collections of the National Museum of China. Ciqi juan[Porcelain section]: Qingdai [Qing dynasty], Shanghai, 2007, pl. 38; another included in the exhibition Ming and Ch’ing Porcelain from the Collection of the T.Y. Chao Family Foundation, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1978, cat. no. 81, was sold in in these rooms, 18th November 1986, lot 80.

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection, Part IV - An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains. Hong Kong, 09 oct. 2012