An extremely rare café-au-lait-ground iron-red 'dragon' dish, Mark and period of Yongzheng | 清雍正 米黃地礬紅彩雲龍紋盤 《大清雍正年製》款

Sotheby's Colonnade, 11th June 1996, lot 78. 

This dish is striking for its rare combination of iron-red enamels on a café-au-lait ground. The design follows earlier Kangxi period dishes, such as one with an iron-red dragon on a white ground, illustrated in Yuci yizhen / Treasures of Imperial Porcelain, Hangzhou, 2011, pp 26-27; and is also related to a group of Kangxi period 'dragon' dishes in underglaze blue and white slip on café-au-lait grounds, such as one in the British Museum, London, illustrated in Soame Jenyns, Later Chinese Porcelain, London, 1971, pl. XIII, and another formerly in the Goldschlager Collection, sold at Christie's London, 4th June 1973, lot 190.

Only a small number of Yongzheng dishes of this type are known. Compare a closely related example, formerly in the E. T. Hall Collection, included in the exhibition Iron in the Fire. The Chinese Potters' Exploration of Iron Oxide Glazes, Ashmolean Museum, London, 1988, cat. no. 81, and sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 28th May 2021, lot 2931, from the Yidetang Collection. Two pairs of dishes of this type have sold at auction: the first at Christie's Hong Kong, 1st October 1991, lot 846; the second in the same rooms, 30th May 2005, lot 1470.