An unusual Dayazhai grisaille and pink enamel-decorated yellow-ground dish, Guangxu period (1875-1908). Estimate $6,000 – $8,000. Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2015

The dish has rounded sides and is finely decorated on the interior en grisaille with bees in flight amidst branches of peony, three of the blossoms highlighted in shaded, pale pink enamel, and osmanthus, interspersed with grasses, and is inscribed in iron red below the rim with the characters, Dayazhai, beside the tian di yi jia chun (Spring throughout the heaven and Earth as one family) seal mark, all on a yellow ground. The exterior is similarly decorated with flower scroll, the different flowers and buds also highlighted in pale pink enamel, and the base has an iron-red yong qing chang chun mark. 11 3/8 in. (29 cm.) diam.

Provenance: Acquired in Hong Kong, 1988.

PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. AND MRS. ROBERT YOUNG, VIRGINIA 

Notes: A dish of this pattern, but of slightly smaller size (28 cm.), in the Beijing Palace Museum collection is illustrated in Guanyang Yuci, Beijing, 2007, p. 158, where one can see that the grisaille roses on the interior are not highlighted in pale, shaded pink enamel, as on the present dish. And on the exterior the flower scroll decoration is in famille roseenamels on a white ground. This is also true of another dish similar to the dish in the Palace Museum, sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 3 December 2008, lot 2210. However, a Dayazhai bowl also in the Beijing Palace Museum Collection, illustrated op cit., p. 157, which is similarly decorated with roses en grisaille on a yellow ground, does appear to have some added enamel color on the blossoms. 

Christie's. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART, 17 - 18 September 2015, New York, Rockefeller Plaza