Lot Essay
The combination of underglaze blue ground with overglaze green enamel dragons is relatively rare, but similarly decorated dish belonging to the Umezawa Kinenkan was exhibited in the Special Exhibition - Chinese Ceramics, Tokyo National Museum, 1994, no. 316. A Kangxi bowl with similar decoration to that seen on the current dish is in the collection of the Shanghai Museum and illustrated by Lu Minghua in Kangxi Porcelain Wares from the Shanghai Museum Collection, Wood Publishing, Hong Kong, p. 300, no. 194.
A copy of this technique and design was made in the Tongzhi period. A Tongzhi example, of the same size as the current Kangxi dish, was exhibited at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington D.C. and published in Joined Colors: Decoration and Meaning in Chinese Porcelain, Tai Yip, Hong Kong, 1993, no. 83.
Two Kangxi dishes decorated with underglaze blue ground and green enamel drgaons and clouds, one in the Baur Collection and one in the Musée Guimet, have additional black enamel applied to obliterate the fifth claw on each of the dragon's feet. This would have been done after the dishes had left the imperial palace. The Baur dish is illustrated by J. Ayers in The Baur Collection Geneva - Chinese Ceramics vol. 4, 1974, no. A555.
A copy of this technique and design was made in the Tongzhi period. A Tongzhi example, of the same size as the current Kangxi dish, was exhibited at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington D.C. and published in Joined Colors: Decoration and Meaning in Chinese Porcelain, Tai Yip, Hong Kong, 1993, no. 83.
Two Kangxi dishes decorated with underglaze blue ground and green enamel drgaons and clouds, one in the Baur Collection and one in the Musée Guimet, have additional black enamel applied to obliterate the fifth claw on each of the dragon's feet. This would have been done after the dishes had left the imperial palace. The Baur dish is illustrated by J. Ayers in The Baur Collection Geneva - Chinese Ceramics vol. 4, 1974, no. A555.