NORTHERN SONG DYNASTY, 11TH-12TH CENTURY

Gilt-decorated Ding dishes are extremely rare and few appear to have been published. Compare the gilt-decorated Ding dish in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Selection of Ding Ware: The Palace Museum’s Collection and Archeological Excavation, Beijing, 2012, pp. 186-86, no. 76. The Palace Museum dish is of similar shape and size to the present lot, but its gilt-decoration is now indecipherable. The author notes that only approximately ten gilt-decorated Ding ceramics are in existence and it is very rare for them to still have traces of the gilding.