YONGZHENG SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE WITHIN A DOUBLE CIRCLE AND OF THE PERIOD (1723-1735)

Chrysanthemum dishes in monochrome glazes from the Yongzheng period appear in various shapes. It is rare to find a monochrome chrysanthemum dish with fluted wall below the circular rim like the present dish. More common are chrysanthemum dishes with lobed rims, as illustrated in Monochrome Porcelain, The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 257, where a complete set of twelve different monochrome colours is shown. Another chrysanthemum-dish shape has twenty-four flutes and a lobbed rim, such as a white-glazed example in the Meiyintang collection, illustrated by Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4(II), pp. 320-321, no. 1781.

A white-glazed dish from the Yongzheng period very similar to the present dish in shape and size (22.6 cm. diam.) is in the Nanjing Museum Collection, illustrated in The Official Kiln Porcelain of the Chinese Qing Dynasty, Shanghai, 2003, p.182.

According to palace archival records, on the 27th day of 12th month of Yongzheng 11th year (1733), Nian Xiyao, supervisor of the Imperial kilns at Jingdezhen, presented the Yongzheng Emperor with ‘chrysanthemum dishes in twelve different colours’, and appeared to have impressed the Emperor who later ordered him to fire forty dishes in each colour.