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Lot Essay
This dish appears to be unique, as there are no other published examples of this rare pattern.
The closest example, possibly from the same workshop, carved with a lotus and a peony flower head, encircled by their stems and flanked by two smaller lotus blooms, with a similar treatment to the reverse but bearing a Zhang Cheng signature, is in the Tokugawa Art Museum and illustrated in Karamono, Imported Lacquerwork-Chinese, Korean and Ryukyuan, no. 2, Japan, 1997, no. 40, where it is dated as 14th century.
Compare also with two further trays carved in very similar style, suggesting they too come from the same workshop, both carved with lotus flowers and broad leaves, the second with an additional pair of mandarin ducks, illustrated in Ancient Chinese Arts in the Idemitsu Collection, Japan, 1989, pls. 360 and 361.
The closest example, possibly from the same workshop, carved with a lotus and a peony flower head, encircled by their stems and flanked by two smaller lotus blooms, with a similar treatment to the reverse but bearing a Zhang Cheng signature, is in the Tokugawa Art Museum and illustrated in Karamono, Imported Lacquerwork-Chinese, Korean and Ryukyuan, no. 2, Japan, 1997, no. 40, where it is dated as 14th century.
Compare also with two further trays carved in very similar style, suggesting they too come from the same workshop, both carved with lotus flowers and broad leaves, the second with an additional pair of mandarin ducks, illustrated in Ancient Chinese Arts in the Idemitsu Collection, Japan, 1989, pls. 360 and 361.