WANLI SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN ENAMEL WITHIN A RECTANGLE AND OF THE PERIOD (1573 - 1619)

Sir Harry Garner, Chinese and Japanese Cloisonné Enamels, London, 1962, notes that the number of Wanli-marked pieces of cloisonné enamel are few and that most of them are of large size, with the mark in enamel on the base, as is the case with the present charger. He states, pp. 76 - 7, that they are of great documentary importance as they are "the only pieces with contemporary marks of the sixteenth century that can be accepted without question as belonging to the period of the mark". He further notes that most of them are decorated with five-clawed dragons within floral borders. A large Wanli-marked cloisonné enamel dish (19.7 in.) with a different type of dragon in the British Museum is illustrated ibid., col. pl. F, and the mark pl. 47C. And a small cloisonné enamel box and cover with a Wanli mark in the collection of Sir Percival and Lady David and now in the Uldry Collection is illustrated ibid., pl. 47A & B.