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Lot Essay
A slightly larger dish of the same form and type was excavated at Huoshaobi, Xi'an, Shaanxi province in 1985 and is now in the Xi'an Institute for the Protection of Cultural Relics. The Xi'an dish is illustrated in China 5,000 Years - Innovation and Transformation in the Arts, Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1998, no. 126, where it is attributed to the Xing or Ding kilns and dated to the Tang dynasty. The Xi'an dish has the character guan (official) inscribed on its base. Another slightly larger dish of this form, bearing the inscription xin guan (new official) on its base, in the Percival David Foundation is illustrated by M. Medley in The Chinese Potter, Oxford, 1976, p. 143, figs. 106-7.
White, five-petalled dishes of this kind have been excavated in Lin'an, Zhejiang province from the tombs of Jian Kuan and his wife Shui Qiu, dated AD 900 and AD 901, and published in Wenwu, 1979:12, pl. 3, fig. 1; and Zhejiang sheng wenwu kaogu suo xuekan, 1981, pl. 9, fig. 1, respectively. These and a number of other white wares excavated from late Tang and Five Dynasties sites have the characters guan or xin guan inscribed on their base. Five Dynasties dishes of five-petalled form bearing the characters xin guan have been excavated from Ding kiln sites, as has been discussed by Li Huibing in 'The origin of high-fired white wares with incised characters guan and xin guan', Wenwu, 1984: 12, p. 60, pl. 1. A dish of identical form to the Falk dish was excavated in 1961-2 at Jiancixuan, Hebei province, illustrated in Kaogu, 1965: 8, pl. II, nos. 4 and 7, where it is dated to the late Tang dynasty. This evidence would suggest that a 10th century date is appropriate for the Falk dish.
White, five-petalled dishes of this kind have been excavated in Lin'an, Zhejiang province from the tombs of Jian Kuan and his wife Shui Qiu, dated AD 900 and AD 901, and published in Wenwu, 1979:12, pl. 3, fig. 1; and Zhejiang sheng wenwu kaogu suo xuekan, 1981, pl. 9, fig. 1, respectively. These and a number of other white wares excavated from late Tang and Five Dynasties sites have the characters guan or xin guan inscribed on their base. Five Dynasties dishes of five-petalled form bearing the characters xin guan have been excavated from Ding kiln sites, as has been discussed by Li Huibing in 'The origin of high-fired white wares with incised characters guan and xin guan', Wenwu, 1984: 12, p. 60, pl. 1. A dish of identical form to the Falk dish was excavated in 1961-2 at Jiancixuan, Hebei province, illustrated in Kaogu, 1965: 8, pl. II, nos. 4 and 7, where it is dated to the late Tang dynasty. This evidence would suggest that a 10th century date is appropriate for the Falk dish.