Page 98 - Christies IMportant Chinese Art Sept 26 2020 NYC

PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF LENORA AND WALTER F. BROWN
1552
A BLUE AND WHITE 'LOTUS BOUQUET' DISH
YONGLE PERIOD (1403-1425)
The dish is finely decorated with a central ribbon-tied lotus plant These so-called 'lotus bouquet' dishes are characteristic of the finest
incorporating sagittaria and millet encircled by composite floral scroll. blue and white wares of the Yongle reign. Some examples, like the
present dish, have a classic scroll band around the inner rim, and some
12¬ in. (32.1 cm.) diam.
have a narrow wave band. A ‘lotus bouquet’ dish with scroll band was
excavated from the Yongle stratum of the site of the imperial kiln at
$150,000-250,000
Jingdezhen in 1994, and is illustrated in Imperial Hongwu and Yongle
Porcelain Excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1996,
PROVENANCE:
W.D. Horne Collection. no. 40. Compare, also, two other dishes of this pattern, but of slightly
Sotheby's London, 9 December 1975, lot 127. larger size: one in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, (34.2 cm. diam.),
Sotheby Parke Bernet Ltd., Hong Kong, 8 November 1982, lot 97. illustrated in Porcelain of the National Palace Museum: Blue-and-White
The Lenora and Walter F. Brown Collection, San Antonio, Texas. ware of the Ming Dynasty, Book II, Part 2, Hong Kong, 1963, pp. 146-7, pl.
59; and one in The Tianminlou Foundation, (34.7 cm. diam.), illustrated in
the catalogue of the Min Chiu Society exhibition, Joined Colors, Sackler
The design on this dish is typically described as 'lotus bouquet,' as
Gallery, Washington, DC, 1993, p. 78, no. 7. A similar dish of slightly larger
the majority of the flowers, pods and leaves belong to the auspicious
size (41 cm. diam.) is in the Topkapi Saray, Istanbul, and is illustrated in
lotus plant. However, the bouquet also includes additional auspicious
J. Ayers and R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum,
plants, such as the arrow-shaped saggitaria sagittifolia, a symbol of
Istanbul, vol. II, Yuan and Ming Dynasty Porcelain, London, 1986, p. 514,
both generosity and of food in a time of shortage, and a stalk of millet,
no. 604 (where another one of slightly smaller size (31 cm. diam.) is
symbolizing an abundance of grain. Dishes with this 'lotus bouquet'
noted). One with the collector’s mark of Shah Abbas, 33.8 cm. diam., is
design belong to an important group of early Ming blue and white wares,
illustrated by T. Misugi in Chinese Porcelain Collections in the Near East:
together with 'grape' dishes, 'melon' dishes, and 'dragon' dishes. See J.A.
Topkapi and Ardebil, Hong Kong, 1981, p. 115, no. A.30, along with two
Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, Washington, D.C., 1956,
examples decorated with a wave border, p. 114, nos. A.28 and A.29.
p. 92, where he discusses the thirty-four 'bouquet' dishes of varying size
and with varying borders in the Ardebil Shrine Collection, showing the
wide range of intensity of cobalt and the diversity of decoration. Some of
these variations can be seen, ibid., on pls. 30 and 31.

明永樂 青花一把蓮紋盤

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