These basins appear in a variety of forms and designs. They are found with barbed rims as well as hexafoil sides, in addition to the pentafoil sides on the present lot, while the other designs in the center include a phoenix and a dragon, fish among weeds and a single qilin

The present lot appears to be quite unusual in its combination of a single dragon and the pentafoil sides. Compare the octagonal basin with bracket-form sides and a single dragon in the center, in the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, included in the exhibition, In Pursuit of the Dragon: Traditions and Transitions in Ming Ceramics, Seattle Museum of Art, 1988, Catalogue, no. 62; the same basin was also exhibited in Beauty and the Selfless Mind and illustrated in the 15th Anniversary Catalogue, Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, 1981, p. 190, no. 853. Compare, also, the basin with a single dragon amid flower sprigs in the collection of Mr. and The Hon. Mrs. R. C. Bruce, included in the exhibition, Polychrome Porcelain of the Ming and Manchu Dynasties, and illustrated in T.O.C.S., 1950-1951, pl. 20, no. 49. Refer, also, to the hexafoil basin with a pair of confronted dragons illustrated in Porcelain of the National Palace Museum: Enamelled Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Hong Kong, 1966, p. 42, pl. 7