A most interesting comparison to the present lot can be made with a red and black lacquer bowl dated 15th Century and decorated with eight phoenix in flight among flowers and foliage identified as roses, in the Shoto Museum of Art illustrated and discussed by Yasuhiro Nishioka, Chugoku no Shikkogei, pl. 85. The trefoil leaves with roundel terminals particularly can be compared to the leaves of the present lot. Similarly the flower-head and diaper-pattern ground and the dominance of phoenix and foliage over the smaller area of ground

Cf. also a pair of red 15th Century lacquer dishes decorated with tree peony and lotus, gardenias and roses similar in size and shape to the present lot and an oval dish with foliated sides carved with a similar ribbed rim, from the Florence and Herbert Irving Collection, illustrated and discussed by James Watt and Barbara Ford, East Asian Lacquer, nos. 22 & 25

More generally, the present dish belongs to a distinct group of lacquer ware known as 'two-bird' dishes, popular in the early Ming period