Page 54 - Ming Porcelain Auction March 14, 2017 Sotheby's, NYC

52 SOTHEBY’S NEW YORK 14 MARCH 2017 MING: THE INTERVENTION OF IMPERIAL TASTE

1 14 1976

Only three other dishes of this decoration technique, design and size appear to 30
be recorded. Although the silhouette e ect seems at rst glance almost stencil-
like, since the basic composition is always the same, each dish is individually 1994 267
hand-decorated and varies from the next. On a companion dish in the Museum
of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, from the Ataka collection, for example, the two 89 2015
parallel stems in the center, of which one belongs to the main peony bloom and Villelume Guy de
the other to the small bud and leaves behind it, seem to have been inadvertently
overpainted in blue, so that the bloom appears to be oating. Yet overall, the 2015 12 2 3112
dish obviously pleased the courtly quality control in the Xuande reign (so that
rejection was not considered), as it still does today; in Japan the dish has been 1998 85 1
designated as ‘Important Cultural Property’. The dish has been frequently
illustrated and exhibited; it is published, for example, in Sekai tōji zenshū/ 85 3
Ceramic Art of the World, vol. 14, Tokyo, 1976, col. pl. 30; and was included
in Chūgoku no tōji/Special Exhibition of Chinese Ceramics, Tokyo National
Museum, Tokyo, 1994, cat. no. 267.

Another dish of this design, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated Mingdai
Xuande yuyao ciqi/Imperial Porcelains from the Reign of Xuande in the Ming
Dynasty, Beijing, 2015, pl. 89. A third such dish, also formerly in the collection
of Baron Guy de Villelume in France, where it was displayed together with the
present dish, was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 2nd December 2015, lot 3112.

This peony design with fruit sprays inside and a chrysanthemum scroll
outside is otherwise very rarely seen in any coloration, but was executed at