Lot 2813. A blue and white early-Ming foliate-rim dish, Yongle period (1403-1424); 12 ½ in. (31.8 cm.) diam. Estimate HKD 1,600,000 - HKD 2,600,000. Price realised HKD 2,000,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019

The dish has a foliate rim and rests on a circular slanting foot. The centre is painted with a mixed floral scroll with five blooms, with tree peony in the centre and lotus, hibiscus, camellia and gardenia around it, and sprays of lotus, morning glory, hibiscus, pomegranate, chrysanthemum and peony around the well, all repeated on the exterior. The rim is painted with a lingzhi scroll on the inside and left plain on the outside, Japanese wood box.

Provenance: Sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 17 January 1989, lot 588.

Note: Fine lobed dishes decorated in high-quality underglaze blue with this combination of mixed floral scrolls, floral sprays, and lingzhi fungus scroll around the rim were popular in the early 15th century and the choice of flowers is consistent on most examples. In the central panel these flowers were lotus, hibiscus, camellia, and gardenia encircling a peony blossom. The sprays in the cavetto are lotus, morning glory, hibiscus, pomegranate, chrysanthemum and peony. Each flower appears twice in strict rotation. 

Dishes with identically arranged decoration are in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, see an example illustrated in Pleasingly Pure and Lustrous: Porcelains from the Yongle Reign (1403-1424) of the Ming Dynasty, Taipei, 2017, pp. 70-71; and the British Museum, see J. Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, p. 116, no. 3:35; eleven from the Ardebil shrine now housed in the Iran Bastan Museum in Teheran recorded by J. Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, Washington, 1956, pl. 35, nos. 29.101-111. Others are illustrated by A. Leith, Catalogue of Selected Objects of Chinese Art in the Museum of Decorative Art Copenhagen, Copenhagen, 1959, no. 108; by J. Wirgin, Ming Porcelain in the Collection of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities: Hongwu to Chenghua, Stockholm, 1991, no. 13; one sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 3 April 2018, lot 3207.

Porcelain serving dish with a bracketed rim and underglaze blue decoration, Ming dynasty, Yongle period (1403-1425). Height: 7.6 centimetres, Diameter: 38 centimetres, Weight: 2.4 kilograms. Donated by Mrs Walter Sedgwick, 1937,1012.1 © 2017 Trustees of the British Museum