Lot 269. A large barbed-rim blue and white 'Peony' dish, Ming dynasty, 15th-16th century. Diameter 20 1/4  in., 51.4 cm. Estimate 30,000 — 50,000 USD. Lot sold 27,500 USD. Photo: Sotheby's.

the deep rounded sides supported on a tapering foot, the central medallion painted in varied cobalt-blue tones with four large peony blooms amid leafy bushes emerging from craggy rockwork within a classic scroll border, the well encircled with a band of camellia issuing leaves between double circles, the everted bracket-lobed rim with a scrolling band, the exterior with flowering peonies bordered by bands of classic scroll and fan-pattern, the base unglazed. 

Provenance: Acquired in the 1970s and 80s.

Note: Dishes of large size and depth, such as the present example, would have been particularly valued by wealthy buyers from the Middle-East during the 15th and 16th centuries as the ample form suited the prevailing custom for communal dining.

Compare two dishes in the Topkapi Saray Museum of the same pattern but of saucer shape illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, cat. II, London, 1986, cat. nos. 724 and 725; the latter also illustrated in Soame Jenyns, Chinese Art, London, 1964-66, pl. 53b and Sekai toji zenshu, vol. 14, Tokyo, 1976, p. 229, fig. 5 (II). Another dish painted with a very similar design but with a peacock perched on the rockwork preserved in the Ardebil Shrine, Iran, and illustrated ibid, no. 717. A nearly identical dish was sold in our Hong Kong rooms 5th November 1996, lot 680. A similar dish but with a straight rim sold in our London rooms 9th November 2011, lot 160.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, New York, 15 sept. 2015