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Lot Essay
The dish is finely painted in underglaze blue in the centre with a leafy pomegranate branch, the cavetto with evenly spaced fruiting sprays of peach, pomegranate, apricot and lychee, the underside with four lotus sprays, all reserved against a rich yellow ground.
Dishes of this design were first produced during the Xuande period and reached the peak of their popularity in the Hongzhi period. A Xuande prototype is illustrated in Xuande Imperial Porcelain Excavated at Jingdezhen, Taipei, 1998, p. 89, no. 88.
Chenghua dishes of this design are particularly rare, the present dish may be the only known example bearing a Chenghua mark in auction. Most related examples are preserved in major museum collections- one is in the British Museum, illustrated by Jessica Harrison-Hall in Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, p. 170, no. 6:16; another is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Blue and White Porcelain with Underglaze Red (II), Hong Kong, 2000, p. 254, no. 229 (fig. 1); a further one is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Ch’eng-Hua Porcelain Ware, Taipei, 2003, pp. 104-105, nos. 86 and 87 (fig. 2). Compare also to a Chenghua blue and white ‘pomegranate’ dish, in the Shanghai museum and recorded in Mingdai Guanyao Ciqi, Shanghai, 2007, p. 140, pl. 3-64 (fig. 3).
Dishes of this design were first produced during the Xuande period and reached the peak of their popularity in the Hongzhi period. A Xuande prototype is illustrated in Xuande Imperial Porcelain Excavated at Jingdezhen, Taipei, 1998, p. 89, no. 88.
Chenghua dishes of this design are particularly rare, the present dish may be the only known example bearing a Chenghua mark in auction. Most related examples are preserved in major museum collections- one is in the British Museum, illustrated by Jessica Harrison-Hall in Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, p. 170, no. 6:16; another is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Blue and White Porcelain with Underglaze Red (II), Hong Kong, 2000, p. 254, no. 229 (fig. 1); a further one is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Ch’eng-Hua Porcelain Ware, Taipei, 2003, pp. 104-105, nos. 86 and 87 (fig. 2). Compare also to a Chenghua blue and white ‘pomegranate’ dish, in the Shanghai museum and recorded in Mingdai Guanyao Ciqi, Shanghai, 2007, p. 140, pl. 3-64 (fig. 3).