Lot 3826. A rare pair of blue and white octafoil saucers, Longqing six-character marks within double circles and of the period (1567-1572); 5 in. (12.5 cm.) wide. Estimate HKD 250,000 - HKD 350,000. Price Realized HKD 437,500. © Christie's Images Ltd. 2011

Each shallow dish with eight bracket lobes, the centre painted with a monkey and deer below a fruiting peach tree in a terraced landscape, the well with a circular lotus pond.

Provenance: Previously sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 27 October 2003, lot 622.

Note: Limited quantities of porcelain wares were produced during the short reign of the emperor Longqing. Only two other dishes of this shape and design appear to be recorded. The first dish, from the Morris S. Whitehouse Collection, is illustrated by Sir Harry Garner, Oriental Blue and White, London, 1957, p. 35, pl. 52A, where the author mentioned that 'the Imperial factory seems to have been closed during the earlier years of the reign, and a large order for more than a hundred thousand pieces was placed in 1571 because supplies for the palace had run short'. The second dish, formerly in the Jarras Collection, sold at Christie's London, 5 July 1983, lot 283, is illustrated by A. du Boulay, Christie's Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics, 1984, p. 32, no. 5, and subsequently sold at Christie's Hong Kong, The Robert Chang Collection, 31 October 2000, lot 812.

Compare also two further underglaze-blue Longqing-marked dishes of this shape but with enamelled decoration, one dish with dragons is illustrated by J. Ayers, The Baur Collection, vol. II, Geneva, 1969, no. A193; the other was included in the exhibition, Chinese Porcelain, The S. C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1987, part II, no. 73. 

Christie's. Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, 1 June 2011, Convention Hall