Dish with flowers, Ming dynasty, Yongle period, AD1403–1424, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province. Porcelain with underglaze cobalt-blue decoration. Height: 29 millimetres, Diameter: 198 millimetres, Sir Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, PDF,B.683 © 2017 Trustees of the British Museum

Porcelain dish with lobed sides and bracket-lobed rim. Underglaze blue with flower spray in each lobe outside . Similar flower sprays inside cavetto, with ogival roundel with three scrolling flowers in centre. Band of scrolling ruyi and leaves on rim. Unglazed base.

Potters at Jingdezhen made what many consider to be the finest blue-and-white porcelains ever achieved in the the Yongle emperor’s reign for the court. These have a lustrous quality never before accomplished and despite numerous attempts never successfully imitated.