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Lot Essay
The current dish was probably made at the kilns at Chuzhou, Zhejiang province, which produced ceramics for the imperial court in the early Ming dynasty. Sherds of dishes with similar carved design have been excavated at the imperial kilns at Chuzhou, see for example a barbed-rim charger carved with lychee design to the centre illustrated in Da Ming Chuzhou Longquan guanyao, Hangzhou, 2005, p. 242, no. 20, opposite to an heirloom charger of the same design in the Topkapi Saray Museum, p. 243, no. 21.
The design of the current dish is closely related to that found on an underglaze blue example excavated from the Yongle stratum from the Ming Imperial kiln site at Zhushan, Jingdezhen, see Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain excavated at Jingdezhen, Taipei, 1996, pp. 154-155, no. 45 (fig. 1). This parallel production at two sites, each working with different clays and different glazes, appears to have provided both kiln sites with inspiration and healthy competition.
For a nearly identical example, compare to the dish from the J.T. Tai collection, sold at Sotheby’s New York, 22 March 2011, lot 86.
The design of the current dish is closely related to that found on an underglaze blue example excavated from the Yongle stratum from the Ming Imperial kiln site at Zhushan, Jingdezhen, see Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain excavated at Jingdezhen, Taipei, 1996, pp. 154-155, no. 45 (fig. 1). This parallel production at two sites, each working with different clays and different glazes, appears to have provided both kiln sites with inspiration and healthy competition.
For a nearly identical example, compare to the dish from the J.T. Tai collection, sold at Sotheby’s New York, 22 March 2011, lot 86.