A LARGE BLUE AND WHITE 'JOHN THE BAPTIST' DISH

CIRCA 1725

细节
A LARGE BLUE AND WHITE 'JOHN THE BAPTIST' DISH
circa 1725
Painted and sponged at the centre with a biblical scene of the Baptism of Christ by St. John in the River Jordan beneath a dove in flight, within landscape cartouches reserved on a cell-pattern ground in the well and fruiting branches at the flaring rim with naked boys concealed among the dense leaves, divided by a large bird of prey at the top and enclosing an inscription at the bottom Mat 3.16. (sic), rim chips
20 in. (51 cm.) diam.

拍品专文

A similar dish was exhibited A Tale of Three Cities: Canton, Shanghai & Hong Kong, London, 1997, Catalogue no.130, p.109, where David Howard says that "it is clear that the Chinese painters were mystified by the subject and may have been copying a Delft dish or vase, which would account for the European style of flowers at the rim." Compare a similar dish in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, illustrated by F. and N. Hervouët and Y. Bruneau, op.cit., 1986, p.263, no.11.13; another, illustrated by G. A. Godden, op.cit., 1979, p.246, colour plate 14; and another in the Mottahedeh Collection, illustrated by David Howard and John Ayers, op.cit, 1978, vol.I, p.313, no.306. Compare also the smaller, more simple versions in iron-red, illustrated by F. and N. Hervouët and Y. Bruneau, ibid., p.263, no.11.14; another from the Museé Guimet, Paris, by M. Beurdeley, op.cit., 1962, cat.226; one from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, by C. Le Corbeiller, op.cit., 1974, p.70, fig.32; and another from the British Museum illustrated by M. Jourdain and R. Soame Jenyns, op.cit., 1967, p.117, fig.87. A very similar dish from the Jarras Collection was sold in these Rooms, 13 June 1990, lot 86; and another was sold in these Rooms, 7 April 1997, lot 30.