Page 38 - Kraak Porcelain, Jorge Welsh

11 Saucer dish

Ming dynasty, Wanli period
( - ), ca. -
Chinese porcelain decorated
in underglaze cobalt blue
Diameter: cm

A thinly potted saucer dish with flared sides, an up- of a saucer dish with a similar type of cavetto and rim
turned bracket-lobed rim and low, v-shaped foot
ring that slants slightly inwards. It is painted in two decoration was excavated at the Guanyinge kiln site in
contrasting shades of cobalt blue, darkening in some
areas to a blackish-blue, beneath a bright bluish- the Old City Zone in Jingdezhen.
white glaze that burst open in some areas on the inner
rim during firing. The centre is decorated with two Some saucer dishes of this type are small, of about
geese in flight and two others standing on rockwork
beside lotus and other water plants, all painted with to cm in diameter, and have eight moulded teardrop
fine lines and washes of paint within a ten-pointed
bracket-lobed medallion surrounded by scale and or circular medallions. Others of larger size with a
swastika-diaper patterns and a thick blue band. The
gently rounded cavetto is decorated with ten teardrop- maximum diameter of about cm, as seen here, have
shaped medallions alternately painted with stylized
peach and flower sprays and auspicious symbols, each ten medallions. Large dishes with only eight teardrop
connected by a double-looped C-scroll below the rim.
The underside is divided into ten radiating segments by medallions do occasionally occur. An example ( cm
thin blue lines that bifurcate above the foot ring, each
enclosing an auspicious symbol and four dots. The foot diam.) of this latter type is in the Topkapi Saray Museum
ring is encircled by double blue lines. The recessed base
is marked by concentric grooves and is covered with a in Istanbul (inv. no. / ). A single or double
brilliant bluish-white glaze. Coarse kiln sand adheres to
minute areas of the foot ring. peach fruit on a high stem and various auspicious

The present saucer dish belongs to a group of dishes with symbols alternately fill the teardrop or circular
faintly moulded circular or teardrop-shaped medallions
on the cavetto and rim, in which the painted decoration medallions.
follows that of the moulded pattern. A large fragment
The central bracket-lobed medallions of these saucer

dishes typically have five, eight or ten points and are

decorated with auspicious symbols or naturalistic motifs,

such as birds and grasshoppers on rocks under large flower

sprays or animals in river landscapes. These medallions are

surrounded by a variety of complex designs of alternating

diaper patterns and stylizedruyi-heads. More rarely, they

are decorated with scrolling flowers framed on the outer

side by thick blue star-shaped medallions, as evidenced

in fragments of dishes recovered from the wreck of the

Dutch East Indiaman, theWitte Leeuw ( ), a Dutch

East Indiaman that sank on June , on the island of

St. Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, and on six intact

saucer dishes from the Tianqi period ( - ) salvaged

from the Wanli wreck (ca. ).