TANG DYNASTY (AD 618-907)

A number of sancai dishes of the same design, decorated with geese against a resist-decorated ground, can be found in major museum collections, including one in the Tokyo National Museum Collection, illustrated in Illustrated Catalogues of Tokyo National Museum - Chinese Ceramics, Tokyo, 1965, pl. 100; another in the Idemitsu Collection, illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1987, no. 33; one exhibited in the Luoyang Museum and the Liaoning Provincial Museum in 1989, and illustrated in Da Sancai (Three-Colour Ware), p. 59, no. 46; one from the collection of Dr. Gustaf Lindberg, exhibited in Venice in 1954, Arte Cinese, Catalogue, no. 326; and one from the Victoria and Albert Museum, illustrated by Margaret Medley, T'ang Pottery & Porcelain, London, 1981, pl. 32, where the author notes on p. 41 that "it is almost certainly silver with traced decoration that is the source for the impressed designs on the offering-trays, dishes and wrist rests." Another example sold at Christie's Hong Kong, Classical Chinese Art from the Sui to the Song Dynasties, 1 June 2016, lot 3105.

A variation of this dish includes those decorated with the same sancai goose motif but against a plain cream ground with a rounded rim, such as a dish in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York illustrated by S. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989 (2nd ed.), p. 65, pl. 57; and one in the Freer Gallery of Art, illustrated by M. Medley, op. cit., pl. 31.

The result of Oxford Authentication Ltd. thermoluminescence test no. C298a33 is consistent with the dating of this lot.