A large blue and white 'dragon' dish mark and period of Wanli

finely potted with shallow rounded sides supported by a wide tapering foot and rising to an everted rim, painted in varying shades of pale cobalt-blue to the interior with two five-clawed dragons in pursuit of a 'flaming pearl', their long sinuous bodies undulating amid ruyi-head cloud scrolls and flames, within a double-line border, the sides similarly decorated with two pairs of dragons chasing 'flaming pearls', the exterior decorated with ten large lotus blooms on a meandering stem with scrolling leaves, the base inscribed with the six-character mark in underglaze-blue within double circles  

A Wanli dish of this pattern, sold in our New York rooms, 4^th June 1982, lot 188, is illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1987, pl. 725; and a smaller dish of this dragon design (d.19cm) from the Hay and Riesco Collections, included in the Oriental Ceramic Society exhibition Ming Blue-and-white Porcelain, London, 1946, cat.no. 78, was sold in our London rooms, 23^rd June 1970, lot 61.