Lot Essay
A tray of this same shape but decorated with a blue-ground from the Beijing Palace Museum collection is illustrated in Guanyang Yuci, The Forbidden City Publishing House, 2007, pp. 155 (fig. 1). According to the note accompanying the sketch, four pairs of blue, light blue and green-ground trays of this shape and pattern were commissioned, op. cit., p. 154, no. 28.