HONGZHI SIX-CHARACTER MARK WITHIN DOUBLE CIRCLES AND OF THE PERIOD (1488-1505)

Incised green-enamelled dragon on a white background, which became popular during the Hongzhi and Zhengde reigns, originated in the Chenghua period. A fragment of a bowl decorated with this design was unearthed from the Chenghua stratum in Zhushan, Jingdezhen, illustrated in Ceramic Finds from Jingdezhen Kilns, Hong Kong, 1992, no. 246.
A Hongzhi-marked dish of similar size, on which the dragons on the exterior are divided by three cloud formations in green enamel, is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, and illustrated in Porcelain of The National Palace Museum, Enamelled Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Book I, Hong Kong, 1966, p. 88, no. 5. Other similar examples are well published, compare to one illustrated by Adrian Joseph in Ming Porcelains: Their Origins and Development, London, 1971, p. 60, no. 63; another in the Baur Collection, illustrated by John Ayers in Chinese Ceramics in the Baur Collection, Geneva, 1999, no. 67; and one in the British Museum, illustrated by Jessica Harrison-Hall in Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, pl. 7:17. All three examples are slightly smaller in size than the present dish, with diameter ranging between 18 -18.2 cm.

The same design also appears on bowls of this period, compare to a bowl in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, ibid, no. 2; and another example illustrated in Sekai Toji Zenshu, vol. 14, Tokyo, 1976, pls. 63 and 64.