Page 27 - Collection of Maureen Pilkington Hong Kong April 2017

fig. 1
Underglaze-blue and yellow enamel ‘gardenia’ dish, mark
and period of Hongzhi
Sir Percival David Collection
© The Trustees of the British Museum
The pair to the present dish, which is still in the Sir Percival Shanghai, 2007, pl. 3-71, together with a blue-and-white
David Collection in the British Museum, is illustrated in Stacey example, pl. 3-70; in the Baur Collection, published in John
Pierson, Designs as Signs: Decoration and Chinese Ceramics,
London, 2001, pl. 19 (fig. 1); the dish is also illustrated in
Margaret Medley, Illustrated Catalogue of Ming Polychrome
Wares, Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London,
1978, pl. III, no. 26, together with the Zhengde version of the
same design, no. 29, and Hongzhi and Zhengde versions of
the same design painted in iron-brown on a white ground, nos
27 and 28.
Dishes of this design are also preserved in the National Palace
Museum, Taipei, included, for example, in Blue-and-White
Ware of the Ming Dynasty, book IV, Hong Kong, 1963, pl. 11;
and in the Museum’s exhibition Ming Chenghua ciqi tezhan
[Special exhibition of Ming Chenghua porcelain], Taipei, 1977,
cat. no. 139, together with Xuande and Jiajing examples, cat.
nos 138 and 141; in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated
in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace
Museum. Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red,
Shanghai, 2000, vol. II, pl. 231, together with Chenghua and
Zhengde versions, pls 230 and 233; in the Shanghai Museum,
illustrated in Lu Minghua, Shanghai Bowuguan zangpin yanjiu
daxi/Studies of the Shanghai Museum Collections: A Series of
Monographs. Mingdai guanyao ciqi [Ming imperial porcelain],
YELLOW-GROUND WARES FROM THE COLLECTION OF MAUREEN PILKINGTON
Ayers, Chinese Ceramics in the Baur Collection, Geneva,
1999, vol. I, pl. 65, together with an example painted in brown
on white, pl. 66; and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York, illustrated in Suzanne G. Valenstein, A Handbook of
Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989, pl. 152. Compare also
the dish of this design of Zhengde mark and period, also from
the collection of Roger and Maureen Pilkington, lot 4 in this
auction.
Bluett & Sons bought the dish from Sotheby’s sale of the
Percival David Foundation duplicates in 1968 for £ 5,700 for
stock. They had a bid from Frederick Knight for £ 5,500, in
case he did not get the ‘melon’ ‘palace bowl’, lot 97 in the
same sale for £ 6,500, which, however, he did get. Roger
Pilkington eventually paid even more, £ 6,555, for the present
dish. That a higher price could be asked for this Hongzhi piece
than for a Chenghua ‘palace bowl’ reflects the outstanding
quality of this dish.
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