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Lot Essay
This dish, which has delicate white slip floral decoration over a soft blue glaze, is of a type often called 'Swatow' ware after the port of Swatow (or Shantou) in Guangdong province, through which such pieces were exported to Japan and Southeast Asia in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The kilns producing these 'Swatow' wares have now been found in Pinghe and Hua'an in Heping county, Zhangzhou prefecture, Fujian province (see Zhangzhou Kilns, Fujian Provincial Museum, 1997), and so the ceramics are often now referred to as Zhangzhou wares.
A dish with very similar decoration to the current example was found in south Sulawesi and is now preserved in the Museum Keramik Jakarta, Adam Malik collection (illustrated by Sumarah Adhyatman in Zhangzhou (Swatow) Ceramics, Ceramic Society of Indonesia, Jakarta, 1999, p. 175, no. 241). A further similar dish, found in Indonesia, is in the collection of the PrincessEhof Museum, Leeuwarden (illustrated by Barbara Harrison in Later Ceramics in south-East Asia; Sixteenth to Twentieth Centuries, Oxford/Singapore/New York, 1995, colour pl. 10). The popularity of such wares in Japan is evidenced by the discovery of sherds in the ruins of the Ichijo-in in the Kofuku-ji in Nara, and the ruins at Naito-cho in Tokyo (see Chinese Ceramics Excavated in Japan, Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, 1978, no. 42). Two complete dishes, bearing similar designs to the current example, were exhibited at the Seikado Bunko Art Museum in Swatow Wares from the Seikado Collection, Tokyo, 1997, p. 61, nos. 59 and 60).
Dishes with this type of decoration are known in several international collections, and one with the same decorative motifs is in the British Museum (illustrated by J. Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, British Museum Press, London, 2001, p. 347, no. 11:187). A very similar dish from the Collection of Myron and Pauline Falk was sold in our New York rooms on 15th October 2001 (original sale date 21st September), lot 484.
A dish with very similar decoration to the current example was found in south Sulawesi and is now preserved in the Museum Keramik Jakarta, Adam Malik collection (illustrated by Sumarah Adhyatman in Zhangzhou (Swatow) Ceramics, Ceramic Society of Indonesia, Jakarta, 1999, p. 175, no. 241). A further similar dish, found in Indonesia, is in the collection of the PrincessEhof Museum, Leeuwarden (illustrated by Barbara Harrison in Later Ceramics in south-East Asia; Sixteenth to Twentieth Centuries, Oxford/Singapore/New York, 1995, colour pl. 10). The popularity of such wares in Japan is evidenced by the discovery of sherds in the ruins of the Ichijo-in in the Kofuku-ji in Nara, and the ruins at Naito-cho in Tokyo (see Chinese Ceramics Excavated in Japan, Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, 1978, no. 42). Two complete dishes, bearing similar designs to the current example, were exhibited at the Seikado Bunko Art Museum in Swatow Wares from the Seikado Collection, Tokyo, 1997, p. 61, nos. 59 and 60).
Dishes with this type of decoration are known in several international collections, and one with the same decorative motifs is in the British Museum (illustrated by J. Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, British Museum Press, London, 2001, p. 347, no. 11:187). A very similar dish from the Collection of Myron and Pauline Falk was sold in our New York rooms on 15th October 2001 (original sale date 21st September), lot 484.