A VERY LARGE MING BLUE AND WHITE DISH, the central panel painted in inky tones with two scaly five-clawed dragons in mutual pursuit amidst cloud and fire-scrolls, the shallow well painted with a continuous undulating lotus meander, beneath the eight Precious Objects, babao, repeated around the rim, the reverse painted with ascending and descending cranes between clouds (minor rim chips, short crack, fritted), Jiajing six-character mark in a line on the underside of the rim and of the period

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A VERY LARGE MING BLUE AND WHITE DISH, the central panel painted in inky tones with two scaly five-clawed dragons in mutual pursuit amidst cloud and fire-scrolls, the shallow well painted with a continuous undulating lotus meander, beneath the eight Precious Objects, babao, repeated around the rim, the reverse painted with ascending and descending cranes between clouds (minor rim chips, short crack, fritted), Jiajing six-character mark in a line on the underside of the rim and of the period
69cm. diam.

Lot Essay

It is unusual to find Jiajing-marked dishes of this exceptionally large size painted in underglaze blue with a pair of dragons. Compare an example painted in underglaze blue with a single dragon, full face leaping amidst lotus scrolls illustrated by Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, vol.II, no.923; and two examples with the same design on a yellow ground, one in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Selected Ceramics from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Hu, pl. 23, and on the front cover; and another illustrated in Sekai Toji Zenshu, vol. 14, pl. 216

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