Lot 112. A pair of incised and enamelled biscuit 'Peach and Pomegranate' dishes, Kangxi marks and period (1662-1722);  24.8cm., 9 3/4 in. Estimate 60,000 — 80,000 GBP. Lot sold 146,500 GBP. Photo Sotheby's

each with rounded sides rising from a short tapering foot to an everted rim, finely incised to the interior with a scaly dragon amidst fire and cloud scrolls and brightly enamelled in cream, yellow, green and aubergine with large peach and pomegranate sprays, all reserved on a cream ground, the exterior similarly decorated, the six-character mark in underglaze-blue within a double circle to the base. Quantité: 2.

Provenance: John Sparks, London.
Acquired in London in the 1960s.

Note: The highly unusual style of this dish, painted with fruit motif overlaying an unrelated engraved dragon design, and the combination of a high-fired glaze (on the base) with a low-fired white glaze is known only from Kangxi dishes and bowls decorated in this colour scheme. Related examples show much variation in the details of the design: the fruits vary in number, they are painted in different stages of ripeness with more or less seeds showing, and are arranged in different clusters on the branches, which ensure that the design retains a lively, naturalistic flair.

Dishes of this type are held in important private and museum collections worldwide; one in the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, is illustrated in Wang Qingzheng, Kangxi Porcelain Wares from the Shanghai Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1998, pl. 144; one in the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, is published in Ye Peilan, Beauty of Ceramics. Gems of the Wucai Porcelain, vol. 7, Taipei, 1996, pl. 283; another in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, is published in Li He, Chinese Ceramics. The New Standard Guide, London, 1996, pl. 613; and a fourth example from the British Rail Pension Fund, was sold in these rooms 6th April 1976, and twice in our Hong Kong rooms, 16th May 1989, lot 70, and 9th October 2012, lot 29, from the Meiyintang collection.

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art. London, 14 mai 2014