A rare late Ming blue and white saucer dish

1595-1600

Details

A rare late Ming blue and white saucer dish
1595-1600
The interior painted with a warrior riding on a horse in full gallop through a landscape with high cliffs and pine, the steep well with a large grasshopper among tuffs of plants and bamboo shoots, below an everted washed-blue zigzag-pattern rim reserved with stylised petals, the reverse with birds perched on prunus branches, the base with an egret mark (minor rim frittings)
20.4 cm. diam.

Lot Essay

The egret mark has been recorded on about forty-five pieces of 'kraak' ware, that are of a better quality than the average pieces. Beside this dish, the egret mark appears on two others that do not belong to the typical 'kraak' ware. One with a rim decoration that is similar to the well of the above dish, is in the Groningen Museum. The second is in the Topkapi Saray Museum in Instabul. For an illustration of these two pieces, see M. Rinaldi, Kraak Porcelain, A Moment in the History of Trade, London, 1989, p.206, pl. 266 a., b.

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