Page 59 - Ming Porcelain Auction March 14, 2017 Sotheby's, NYC

Fig. 3 A large yellow-ground blue and Fig. 4 A large brown and white
white ‘peony’ dish, Xuande mark and ‘peony’ dish, Xuande mark and
period. period
© Jingdezhen Ceramics Archaeology © Shanghai Museum
Institute

©
©

4 25

All these dishes have the mark reserved in a cartouche below the rim, like the 1998
present piece, and the unglazed bases tend to be burnt a vivid orange to a
dark reddish brown, perhaps due to application of an iron-rich wash, although 82 Soame Jenyns
this seems to be missing on the Ataka example. Smaller dishes decorated in
this technique (c. 25 cm), of the gardenia pattern, have a glazed base with the Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic
regular reign mark inscribed within a double circle. Six dishes of this smallest
size are recorded, of which three are in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, Society 31 1957 59 6c
see the Museum’s 1998 exhibition, op.cit., cat. no. 82, and Soame Jenyns in
Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 31, 1957-59, pl. 6c; one in the 13 2000 26 9
Guangdong Provincial Museum, see Zhongguo taoci quanji [Complete series on 1982
Chinese ceramics], vol. 13, Shanghai, 2000, pl. 26; one in the Anhui Provincial 20 1 2
Museum, illustrated in Wenwu 1982, no. 9, p. 20, gs 1 and 2; and one, sold in 1973 3 13 235
our London rooms, 13th March 1973, lot 235, published in Tōji taikei, vol. 42, 1975
Tokyo, 1975, col. pl. 15 and p. 129, g. 15, today probably in a private Japanese 42
collection. 15 129 15

This latter gardenia design was closely copied in the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), 5 33 2
see Lu Minghua, op.cit., pl. 5-33, for an example in the Shanghai Museum 843
attributed to the Yongzheng period, when pieces with contemporary white-
against-blue designs were also produced in this technique, see Krahl, op.cit., vol.
2, no. 843. A blue-glazed ground was in the Xuande period also used for a few
bowls and small dishes with reserved sh-pond designs, which are executed,
however, in a slightly di erent technique, with details painted in slip.