Lot 3418. An exceedingly rare yellow-enamelled dish, Xuande six-character mark within double circles and of the period (1426-1435); 4 3/4 in. (12.1 cm.) diam. Estimate HKD 800,000 - HKD 1,000,000. Price Realized HKD 3,400,000. © Christie's Image Ltd 2014.

The dish is well potted with rounded sides rising from a cylindrical foot to an everted rim, covered inside and out with an iridescent egg-yolk yellow enamel, the base covered with a transparent glaze, box.

Provenance: Bluett & Sons, London, 1938
Raymond F.A. Riesco Collection, no. 191
Sold at Sotheby's London, 11 December 1984, lot 278.

Note: The current dish is extremely rare and appears to be one of the smallest known examples of Xuande-marked yellow-enamelled dishes. One other yellow-enamelled dish of the same size in the Alfred Clark Collection was included in the Oriental Ceramic Society exhibition Monochrome Porcelain of the Ming and Manchu Dynasties, London, 1948, cat. no. 180. A slightly larger example measureing at 12.8 cm. diam. is in the National Museum of China, and illustrated in Zhongguo guojia bowuguan guancang wenwu yanjiu congshu, ciqi juan, Mingdai, Shanghai, 2007, no. 49.

Christie's. The Imperial Sale / Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Hong Kong, 28 May 2014