.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This rare design belongs to a known but very small group of green and black wares including dishes and vases. A pair of slightly larger dishes with insects among similar flora, but no birds and with a lotus scroll around the reverse, was sold Sotheby's London, 6 July 1971, lot 230. A pair this size but with a single blossoming prunus branch growing across the centre from the rim and with the bajixiang around the exterior was sold Sotheby's Hong Kong, 23 May 1978, lot 164. A slightly larger dish is illustrated by John Ayers in The Baur Collection, vol. IV, pl. A568, where the central image of a bird perched among peonies on rockwork is surrounded by a lotus scroll around the well. Qianlong period examples illustrate a change in the basic design, where a border always surrounds the main field. A dish of this size, with flowering and fruiting plants issuing from rockwork now surrounded by a lotus scroll border repeated on the reverse was sold Sotheby's Hong Kong, 28 November 1978, lot 363. Another with birds and peonies surrounded by a panelled border containing scholars' objects and scrolling lotus around the reverse was sold there, 25 April 2004, lot 269. A much larger Qianlong dish was sold in these Rooms, 5 June 1995, lot 210, again with a pair of birds perching among peonies and rockwork, but surrounded by a broad border of the bajixiang within a lotus scroll. An ogee bowl of this pattern was also sold in these Rooms, 11 June 1990, lot 269; and a pear-shaped vase in Christie's Hong Kong, 1 May 1995, lot 660.