Page 53 - Ming Porcelain Auction March 14, 2017 Sotheby's, NYC

ROYAL BLUE

REGINA KRAHL

T his magni cent, large ‘royal blue’ dish was made to impress the impe-
rial court and re ects the search for new classics at China’s imperial
porcelain kilns during the Xuande reign (1426-1435). Its extremely rare
reverse decoration technique had been experimented with already in the
late Yuan period (1279-1368), but in order for it to nd favor at the early Ming
court (1368-1644) it needed to be re ned technically. The Xuande period is
marked by a sudden keen imperial interest in ceramics. While in the Yongle
reign (1403-1424), many of the nest items made at Jingdezhen were still sent
abroad, in the Xuande period, with the generalized use of the imperial reign
mark, production at the imperial kilns appears to have been destined almost
exclusively for the palace.

Although the rich cobalt-blue ground worked spectacularly well to highlight
bright fruit and ower designs, the material costs – due to the high quality and
quantity of cobalt required – and the technical expertise required by the indirect
reserve decoration process probably made production on a larger scale of
wares in this style impractical even for the imperial kilns. The production time
would have far exceeded that of dishes painted in the positive, in blue on white,
so that this technique was clearly not suited for production in larger numbers.
Apart from occasional trials, it was more or less abandoned after the Xuande
reign, to be properly revived again – like many other early Ming styles – only in
the Yongzheng period (1723-1735).

The resist technique as used on this dish appears complicated. The design was
rst incised into the un red white body and the mark on the outside inscribed

in underglaze blue. Then either the design only or the complete inside and
outside – opinions vary – was or were covered with a transparent glaze, and
subsequently the background around the design with a blue glaze. The plain
rings around the center and the foot, however, appear as if scratched through
the blue glaze, and in some areas, more transparent glaze appears to have
been added after the blue, creating in places a very thick white layer, which
has partly obscured the incising. The overall e ect was much re ned since the
Yuan dynasty, the surface being smooth and even, without any gaps where blue
meets white.