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A MASSIVE BLUE AND WHITE ‘DRAGON’ This dish is striking for its immense size, which would have
DISH required considerable skill in its manufacture. The body is
JIAJING MARK AND PERIOD thickly potted to avoid warping in the kiln during ring, and the
designs on the interior and exterior are carefully executed with
the rounded sides rising from a short tapering foot to a slightly each element playing an important role in balancing the entire
everted rim, painted to the interior with two large scaly ve- composition.
clawed dragons in mutual pursuit of a ‘ aming pearl’, all amidst
Dishes of such large size were made in small numbers in the
re scrolls and ruyi-shaped clouds, encircled at the well by a Jiajing reign, and were destined both for the court and for
composite oral scroll and a cash band at the rim, the exterior export to western Asia. A similar Jiajing mark and period dish
with eight medallions each enclosing an Immortal and divided of this type, but the well painted with a lotus scroll and the
by rocks and ruyi-shaped clouds, the six-character mark exterior with further dragons, from the Qing Court collection
written in a line to the exterior below the rim and still in Beijing, is illustrated in The Complete Collection of
79 cm, 31 in. Treasures in the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain
with Underglaze Red (II), Shanghai, 2000, pl. 120; one from
PROVENANCE the Huaihaitang collection, was included in the exhibition
Charlotte Horstmann and Gerald Godfrey Ltd., Hong Kong, Enlightening Elegance. Imperial Porcelain of the Mid to Late
1st May 1989. Ming, Art Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong
Kong, 2012, cat. no. 21; and a third painted on the interior with
£ 60,000-80,000 a front-facing dragon, is illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese
HK$ 580,000-775,000 US$ 74,500-99,500 Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum Istanbul, London, 1986,
vol. II, pl. 923. See also a dish of these proportions decorated
䓋 with a dragon over a yellow ground, in the Shanghai Museum,
Shanghai, included in the exhibition Seika jiki ten [Exhibition of
Charlotte Horstmann Gerald Godfrey Ltd 1989 5 1 blue and white porcelain from the Shanghai Museum], Matsuya
Ginza, Tokyo, 1988, cat. no. 55; and another published in L.
Reidemeister, Ming. Porzellane in Schwedischen Sammlungen
[Ming. Porcelains in Swedish collections], Berlin, 1935, pl. 29.
The exterior of this dish appears to depict the story of the Eight
Immortals Crossing the Sea, according to which the immortals
are believed to have combined their powers to sail past a
tempest rather than travelling by their clouds. This anecdote
is a lesson on how individual strengths and gifts can together
be used to tackle the same obstacle. The immortals are here
depicted in circular cartouches surrounded by mountain peaks
emerging from water, which symbolise Kunlun mountain, the
primordial mountain.
Detail of reverse
26 SOTHEBY’S
