Lot Essay
Dishes of this type with Hongzhi mark, but of smaller size, include one (19.8 cm.) in the British Museum, illustrated by J. Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics, London, 2001, pp. 177-78, no. 7:3, where the author, p. 178, notes that "large numbers of these dishes were commissioned by the imperial court during the Hongzhi reign." Another smaller dish (16.2 cm.) in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is illustrated by Suzanne G. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989 ed., pl. 155; and one (18.5 cm.) in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, is illustrated in Porcelain of The National Palace Museum: Monochrome Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Book, 2, Hong Kong, 1968, pp. 110-11, pls. 2-2c.