SONG DYNASTY (960-1279)

First popular during the Han dynasty, there was a resurgence of interest in lacquer wares during the Song dynasty. Most of the excavated examples have been found in South China, primarily in Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces, but the simple, elegant shape of Song dynasty lacquer wares is most closely related to Northern porcelain wares, especially those from the Ding kilns. As with the present lacquer dish, many Ding dishes and bowls have a metal-bound rim. On the Ding pieces the metal rim was used to cover the fragile, unglazed rim, while on the lacquer pieces its use may only have been for reinforcement purposes. The simple shape of this lacquer dish is comparable to that of a small Ding dish in the Falk collection, lot 51, which has six petal lobes rather than five. This small Ding dish shares the same gently rounded, flared sides rising from a flat base, but the unglazed petal-lobed rim is not bound in metal.
For a very similar lacquer dish of slightly smaller size see Chinese lacquer from the Jean-Pierre Dubosc collection and others, Eskenazi, London, December 1992, no. 2. See, also, a dish of similar shape and size included in the exhibition, Dragon and Phoenix, Chinese Lacquer Ware: The Lee Family Collection, Tokyo, The Museum of East Asian Art, Cologne, Germany, 1990, no. 58, where a dish excavated at Jianli Xian, Hubei province is noted, Wenwu, 1982, 2.93, pl. 8, fig. 4.