Page 5 - Marchant 2013 Exhibition

一 1. A Chinese porcelain blue and white saucer dish with steep rounded sides and lipped rim painted in the centre with a bouquet

of tied lotus flowers, leaves, buds, arrow heads and a lotus pod, together with other water plants and grasses, encircled by three
青 concentric rings, the cavetto with thirteen flowerheads on a continuous scrolling branch consisting of pairs of camellia, hibiscus,
花 tree peony, rose, lotus and chrysanthemum and a single pomegranate flower, beneath a band of ‘classic’ scrolls at the rim, the
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束 exterior with a similar composite scrolling branch including a pair of narcissus, between a ‘classic’ scroll and a keyfret band, the
蓮 unglazed smooth white biscuit base revealing traces of burnt orange in the firing.
紋 10 ⅞ inches, 27.6 cm diameter.

盤 Yongle, 1403-1424.

明 • Formerly in the collection of a gentleman, sold by Christie’s London in their auction of Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of
永 Art, 4th June 1973, no. 106, pp. 36/7, when it was purchased by Hugh Moss.
樂 • Published by S.T. Yeo and Jean Martin in Chinese Blue and White Ceramics, p. 84, fig. 29.

• Formerly in the Meiyintang Collection.
• Published by Regina Krahl in Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 2, no. 665.
• Sold by Sotheby’s Hong Kong in their auction of The Meiyintang Collection, Part III, 4th April 2012, no. 37.
• A similar dish is illustrated by John Alexander Pope in Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, pl. 31, no. 29.21, where it is

interesting to note that of thirty-four lotus-bouquet dishes recorded from the Ardebil Shrine in Iran only three are of this size,
two have a wave rim border and only one is of the present type.
• The lotus, lian, is used as a pun for ‘incorruptible’, qinglian, for ‘continuous’, lian forms the rebus, liansheng, ‘A continuous rise
in rank’.

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