It is most unusual to find a dish of this relatively large size enamelled in this style with a ruby back. Ruby-backed dishes are usually smaller (on average approximately 20 cm. or smaller) and the design on the front of the dish more centralised. The present design appears to evolve irresistibly from the reverse, a type which is more typical of the larger 'peach' dishes and those with flowering branches issuing from the exterior and growing over the rim. It seems unusual to employ a design which invites the user to turn the dish over and then confronts them with a monochrome.

An example of a dish enamelled with plants growing from the rim and with a ruby back, but smaller than the present example, is illustrated by Spencer in the Chang Foundation Inaugural Catalogue, p. 56. Another with a lemon-yellow back was sold in our London Rooms, 7 June 1993, lot 80. Larger dishes with designs continuing from the base over the rim are illustrated in Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong, p. 222, fig. 51 and Far Eastern Ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum, fig. 63.

The present example is a hybrid of the two patterns.

(US$30,000-40,000)