AN EARLY MING BLUE AND WHITE 'GRAPES' DISH

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AN EARLY MING BLUE AND WHITE 'GRAPES' DISH
YONGLE

The foliage rim centrally painted in a deep blue with bunches of grapes hanging from a vine meander amongst leaves and tendrils within a dodecafoil border below twelve panels of stylized floral sprays within a continuous band of flowerheads and foliage meander, the exterior painted with twelve further floral sprays in moulded panels, the blue with extensive 'heaping and piling', the unglazed base fired slightly orange (repaired)--17 1/2in. (44.5cm.) diam., box

Lot Essay

See an almost identical example included in the exhibition from the the collections of the Percival David Foundation and C.P. Lin, Elegant Form and Harmonious Decoration, 1992, Catalogue, no. 27.

Cf. an almost identical example in the Matsuoka Museum, illustrated in Selected Masterpieces of Oriental Ceramics, colour a.54; a slighty smaller example (43.5cm.), one of three dishes of this pattern, is illustrated by J.A. Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, pl. 38, 29, 58, which bears the mark of Qarachaghay. See also other smaller examples in Oriental Ceramics, Kodansha Series, vol. 3, Museum Pusat, Jakarta, colour pl. 781 (44 cm. diam); Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, 15th Anniversary Catalogue, pl. 781 (43.5 m. diam.); a dish from the collection of Mrs. Walter Sidgewick was exhibited at the O.C.S. Exhibition of the Art of the Ming Dynasty, 1957, pl. 35, Catalogue, no. 118, later bequeathed to the British Museum, see Oriental Ceramics, Kodansha Series, vol. 5, pl. 155 (43cm. diam.); O.C.S. Transactions 1969-71, vol. 38; The Ceramic Art of China, an exhibition organised by the Arts Council of Great Britain and the O.C.S., June/July 1971, Catalogue, pl. 105, p. 105 (43.2cm. diam.), from the City Art Gallery, Bristol; also the exhibition at the Hong Kong Museum of Art, An Anthology of Chinese Ceramics, Catalogue, Oct./Dec. 1980, pl. 74 (43cm. diam.); and in the Matsuoka Museum of Art, illustrated in Masterpieces of Oriental Ceramics, pl. 54.

Similar examples sold in our London Rooms, 11 July 1977, lot 111 and another December 1985, lot 151

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