Lot Essay
Compare a dish of similar type, measuring 15.4 cm. diam., in the Tokyo National Museum, bearing a four-character mark, Taihe yuannian, 'The first year of Taihe' (corresponding to A.D. 1201), illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol. 1, Kodansha, 1982, no. 103. Compare also the examples in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, ibid., vol. 11, fig. 72 and vol. 8, col. pl. 50, from the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm. It is interesting to note that this type of enamelling are the earliest to have appeared on Chinese porcelain.