NORTHERN SONG DYNASTY (960-1127)

The glaze on this Ru ware dish has been damaged by fire, and has the same appearance as another Ru dish in the Percival David Foundation, which bears a Qianlong inscription dated AD 1779 carved into the glaze on its base when the dish was a treasured antique in the Qing imperial collection. See Illustrated Catalogue of Ru, Guan, Jun, Guangdong and Yixing wares in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, rev. ed., London, 1999, pp. 67-8, no. A58. As with the David Foundation dish, the glaze on the current vessel has been rendered opaque and has grey and pinkish-red areas on the surface. In relation to the David Foundation dish, scholars have suggested that the pinkish-red suffusions may have been caused by copper coming from bronzes that stood near to the dish in the intense heat of the conflagration. This applies equally to the current dish. It has been suggested that the David Foundation dish was damaged during the fire that broke out in the Forbidden City on 26 June 1923 in the garden attached to the Palace for the Establishment of Happiness during which many buildings in the vicinity were gutted. It seems possible that the current dish was damaged in the same fire.