Page 145 - 2019 September 12th Christie's New York Chiense Art Masterpieces of Chinese Gold and Silver

Dishes with a fat rim encircled by a low ridge on the outer edge appear in silver beginning in
the Tang dynasty, which is when silver began to be used on a more regular basis for fne vessels.
During the Song dynasty dishes of this type continued to be made in silver, and also more rarely in
gold, most likely for use at the imperial court. A gold dish of similar shape and slightly smaller size
(15.4 cm. diam.), chased in the center with lotus decoration and with ‘cash’ diaper pattern on the
rim, formerly in the collection of Christian Holmes and the Hon. Senator Hugh Scott, Washington,
D.C., and now in the collection of Pierre Uldry, is illustrated in Chinesisches Gold und Silber, Zurich,
1994, p. 230, no. 272, where it is dated Song, as is a smaller (14.2 cm. diam.) silver dish decorated
with a large peony stem, illustrated p. 230, no. 273. Also illustrated, p. 166, pl. 154, is a Tang silver
dish of similar shape and comparable size (15.8 cm. diam.) which has the same central decoration
as seen on the present gold dish. This central decoration of small circles in a ring within a circular
medallion may represent a lotus pod, a motif seen in the center of lacquer ‘lotus’ dishes of Yuan
date, such as the examples illustrated by Sherman E. Lee and Wai-Kam Ho, Chinese Art Under the
Mongols: The Yüan Dynasty (1279-1368), The Cleveland Art Museum of Art, 1968, nos. 288-91. The
inclusion of the central decoration on both the gold and silver dishes may imply that these dishes
were made as cup stands.
These valuable gold and silver dishes are thought to be the inspiration for dishes of the same
shape made at the Ding kilns during the 11th-12th centuries. Ding dishes of this type, also
decorated with foral motifs in the interior, include an example in the Palace Museum, Beijing,
illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 32 - Porcelain of the
Song Dynasty (I), Hong Kong, 1996, p. 76, no. 67, and two examples illustrated by Tsai Meifen,
Decorated Porcelains of Dingzhou: White Ding Wares from the Collection of the National Palace
Museum, Taipei, 2014, p. 69, no. II-24.

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