A FINE AND RARE GOLD DISH SONG DYNASTY

the flat interior finely engraved with a wide band of flowering peonies amidst large feathery leaves on a striated ground arranged around a central medallion and framed by a single beaded row, the shallow sides flaring slighlty upwards to a flat everted rim engraved with a band of classic scroll borded by the lipped rim

Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1954-55, cat. no. 53B.

Chinese Gold, Silver and Porcelain. The Kempe Collection, Asia House Gallery, New York, 1971, cat. no. 22,an exhibition touring the United States and shown also at nine other museums.

Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, pl. 53B.

Zhang Linsheng, 'Zhongguo gudai di jingjin gongyi', the National Palace Museum Monthly of Chinese Art, Beijing, 1984, no. 14, p. 59 , fig. 32.

Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, The Museum of Art and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 1999, pl. 51.

Chinese Ceramic Treasures, A Selection from Ulricehamn East Asian Museum, including The Carle Kempe Collection, The Museum of Art and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 2002, pl. 51.

Song gold dishes are rare, and even rarer are those engraved with such distinct bold flower motif. A comparable but smaller dish similarly engraved with flowering peonies can be found in this collection, lot 106. See also a rare Song gold dish of this form, decorated in the centre with a large blooming lotus motif, formerly in the collections of Christian Holmes and the Hon. Hugh Scott, and now in the collection of Pierre Uldry, illustrated in Chinesisches Gold und Silber, Zurich, 1994, pl. 272.

Compare also a slightly smaller Song silver dish of this form, the decorative pattern in the centre consisting of a large stylized blooming peony flower while the rim chased with a coin pattern, from the collection of the Hon. Hugh Scott, included in the China Institute in America exhibition Early Chinese Gold and Silver, China House Gallery, New York, 1971, cat. no. 92.

The present dish is possibly inspired by earlier dishes of the Tang period; such as the three examples illustrated in Han Wei and Christian Deydier, Ancient Chinese Gold, Paris, 2001, pls. 393-394, a silver dish decorated in gilt with flower scrolls and a pair of carp; pl. 395, a dish with the motif of swimming ducks amidst flowers; and pl. 397, a silver dish with floral decoration.