WANLI SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE AND OF THE PERIOD (1573-1619)

It appears that blue and white pen trays, with relief-molded decoration, are quite rare. A Wanli-marked pen tray painted in underglaze blue with a dragon and phoenix, rather than the pair of molded dragons, in the main compartment, is illustrated by R. Krahl in Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 2, London, 1994, no. 709. Pen trays with relief-molded dragons, similar to those on the present tray, are more commonly found decorated in a wucai palette, such as the example from the Hirota Collection, now in the Tokyo National Museum, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics: The World's Great Collections, Tokyo, vol. 1, 1982, no. 76, and again by D. Lion-Goldschmidt in Ming Porcelain, New York, 1978, p. 213, pl. 230. Another wucai example, in the Percival David Foundation, is illustrated by R. Scott and R. Kerr in Ceramic Evolution in the Middle Ming Period, London, 1994, no. 22.