the rounded sides supported on a flat base, impressed in the centre with a stylised lotus, the central pod encircled by star-shaped petals with curled edges, all in green, chestnut and straw glazes reserved on a dappled ground, encircled around the well by five large semi-circular petals, the exterior and base unglazed.

Provenance: Collection of K.M. Semon.
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Bernat.
Sotheby's New York, 7th November 1980, lot 58.
Collection of Dr. Ip Yee.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 19th November 1984, lot 140.
Collection of T.Y. Chao (1912-1999).

Note: Basins of this pattern are illustrated in Toji Taikei [Ceramic Great Series], vol. 35, Tokyo, 1974, pls 58 and 59; and one partly glazed in blue from the Cunliffe collection is illustrated in the Matsuoka Collection Catalogue, Tokyo, 1983, cat. no. 13, sold in our London rooms, 1st April 1974, lot 29; and another similar basin illustrated in Mayuyama, Seventy Years, Tokyo, 1976, pl. 284.

Other dishes impressed with the same medallion but with different glazes are illustrated in The Art of the T'ang Potter, London, 1960, pl. XVII, in the Victoria and Albert Museum; and in Three Colour Glaze Pottery of the T'ang Dynasty, vol. II, Hong Kong, 1977, pl. 89, in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and one with a different central medallion but similar border in Early Chinese Pottery and Porcelain, London, 1952, pl. 32, from the Calmann Collection. 

Dish, earthenware with coloured lead glazes; China, Tang dynasty, 8th century. Purchased with Art Fund support, the Vallentin Bequest, Sir Percival David and the Universities China Committee, C.11-1935. © Victoria and Albert Museum.

Funerary Basin (Pan) with Floral Roundel, China, middle Tang dynasty, about 700-800. Wheel-thrown earthenware with impressed decoration and polychrome (sancai) glaze. Height: 2 1/2 in. (6.35 cm); Diameter: 10 1/2 in. (25.67 cm). Mr. and Mrs. Allan C. Balch Collection (M.57.14). © Los Angeles County Museum of Art

An unglazed fragment from a bowl of this form, impressed with the same central motif, was included in the O.C.S. Exhibition of the Kiln Sites of Ancient China, London, 1980, cat. no. 372, from the kiln site at Gongxian, Henan, the only kiln producing sancai wares of the Tang dynasty discovered up to that time.