Page 132 - 2019 September 11th Sotheby's Important Chinese Art

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PROPERTY FROM THE YOUNGMAN COLLECTION The design of five-clawed dragons among dense lotus scrolls
A FINE BLUE AND WHITE ‘DRAGON’ DISH is perhaps the most characteristic pattern of the Zhengde
ZHENGDE MARK AND PERIOD period (1506-21) and appears on dishes, bowls and jars of
zhadou shape. Although the dragon-and-lotus design was
supported on a slightly tapered foot gently rising to rounded popular throughout the Ming period, this dense and even
sides, vividly painted with a central medallion enclosing distribution of the decorative elements, and the soft tone of
a five-clawed dragon writhing amidst scrolling stems of cobalt blue are particular to the Zhengde period.
lotus flowers and trefoil leaves, the cavetto with two further The design may be based on a Xuande prototype, although
writhing dragons also against lotus scroll all between double- no exact counterpart is known. For the most closely related
line borders, the reverse similarly decorated, a ruyi-head Xuande design compare a dish centered with two dragons
border at the foot, the base with a four-character mark facing forward among peony scrolls, or one with very similar
within a double-circle dragons among lotus scrolls, both illustrated in Mingdai
Diameter 8¼ in., 21 cm Xuande guanyao jinghua tezhan tulu/Catalogue of the Special
Exhibition of Selected Hsüan-te Imperial Porcelains of the
PROVENANCE
Ming Dynasty, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1998, cat.
Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 20 October 1993, lot 49. nos 188 and 189; an example of the latter design was sold
Spink, London. in our Hong Kong rooms, 4th April 2012, lot 3156. Compare
Offered at Christie’s Hong Kong, 30th October 1995, lot 702. also a Chenghua mark and period (AD 1465-87) blue and
Collection of Robert P. Youngman (1940-2018). white dragon dish from the Sir Percival David Collection
in the British Museum, London, in Oriental Ceramics:
$ 50,000-70,000 The World’s Great Collections, Tokyo, New York, and San
Francisco, 1980-82, vol. 6, col. pl. 32, which represents a
明正德 青花穿蓮龍紋盤 much more loosely composed forerunner to this design.
《正德年製》款 On Zhengde dishes of this type, the placement of the
surrounding dragons can vary. Two slightly larger dishes
來源 are in the British Museum, London, one with the dragons
香港蘇富比1993年10月20日，編號49 similarly arranged as on the present dish, both illustrated in
Jessica Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum,
Spink，倫敦 London, 2001, pls 8:15 and 16. Another dish similar to
上拍於香港佳士得1995年10月30日，編號702 the present piece in the Shanghai Museum is published
羅伯特•楊門 (1940-2018) 收藏 in Lu Minghua, Shanghai Bowuguan cangpin yanjiu daxi
Mingdai guanyao ciqi Ming imperial porcelain /Studies of
the Shanghai Museum Collections: A Series of Monographs,
Shanghai, 2007, pl. 3-78; and one from the Eumorfopoulos
Collection, illustrated in R.L. Hobson, The George
Eumorfopoulos Collection of Chinese, Corean and Persian
Pottery and Porcelain, London, 1925-8, vol. IV, pl. VII, no. D
18, was sold in our London rooms, 29th May 1940, lot 211.
A zhadou, a dish, and three different bowls with this design
are in the Palace Museum, Beijing, see The Complete
Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and
White Porcelain with Underglazed Red, vol. 2, Shanghai,
2000, pls 57, 63 and 69-71, one of the bowls with the
Zhengde reign mark replaced by a mark in Phags-pa script.
A matching zhadou also in the Meiyintang Collection, Regina
Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol.
2, London, pl.686, was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 7th
April 2011, lot 60.

130 SOTHEBY’S IMPORTANT CHINESE ART