A FINE AND EXTREMELY RARE BLUE AND WHITE 'CHRYSANTHEMUM' DISH MING DYNASTY, YONGLE PERIOD

well-potted with an everted rim, supported on a short tapered foot, finely painted in vivid tones of cobalt-blue enhanced with characteristic 'heaping and piling' to the interior with a single circular-meandering scroll of three chrysanthemum flowers and buds, enclosed within a double-lined barbed border, encircled in the cavetto by eight lotus flower scrolls, below the mouthrim painted with a border of ruyi-heads on a scrolling leafy stem between single and double-lined borders, the underside decorated with floral sprays of lotus blossom, camellia, rose, peony and chrysanthemum, the base unglazed

The dish is in very good condition with only a few faint scratches on the interior.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Large dishes such as this were an innovation of the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) and their continued production in the Yongle reign (1403-24) may reflect the Yongle Emperor's interest in having the imperial kilns create porcelains suitable for export. Even today, a larger number of dishes of this design is preserved in the royal collections of the Safavids in Iran and the Ottomans in Turkey than in China or elsewhere. Their availability appears, however, to have been strictly controlled by the court, and their sale may have been effected directly through the fleets of Zheng He (1371-1435), the Imperial eunuch, who led six gigantic maritime expeditions westwards as far as East Africa for the Yongle Emperor. Excavations of the Ming imperial kiln site have shown that Yongle dishes of this type can be attributed to the early part of the reign, since sherds of such large blue-and-white vessels have been discovered, for example, in stratum three of the Zhonghua Road excavation site in Jingdezhen, immediately above the Hongwu (1368-98) stratum.

Chrysanthemums were a particularly popular motif of porcelain decoration in the Hongwu reign, which also suggests an early date in the Yongle period, but similar designs executed in the Hongwu period are much stiffer and the cobalt blue tends to lack brilliance and intensity. A comparison dramatically reveals the great qualitative progress made at the imperial kilns within the few decades or years from the Hongwu to the early Yongle reign; see a Hongwu prototype excavated at Jingdezhen, included in exhibition Jingdezhen chutu Yuan Ming guanyao ciqi [Yuan and Ming imperial porcelain excavated at Jingdezhen], Yan-Huang Art Museum, Beijing, 1999, cat.no.25.

The various flower designs seen on this dish – chrysanthemum, rose and lingzhi inside, and peony, chrysanthemum, rose, two kinds of lotus and a five-petalled flower outside – are among the most characteristic porcelain motifs of the period. In the Yongle reign chrysanthemums were used as main design also on other shapes, for example, on a pear-shaped ewer, a yuhuchun bottle and a small bowl, all discovered at the Jingdezhen kiln site and published in Jingdezhen Zhushan chutu Yongle guanyao ciqi [Yongle imperial porcelain excavated from Zhushan, Jingdezhen], Beijing, 2007, pl.67, and in the exhibition catalogue Jingdezhen chutu Yuan Ming guanyao ciqi [Yuan and Ming imperial porcelain excavated at Jingdezhen], Yan-Huang Art Museum, Beijing, 1999, cat. nos 51 and 59.

Ten Yongle dishes of the same design as the present piece, six of similar size and four even larger, are recorded by John Alexander Pope in Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, Washington, D.C., 1956, pl. 33. Eight of these dishes are inscribed with the name of Qarachaghay Khan, one of Shah Abbas' (r. 1587-1629) closest advisors and commander-in-chief of the Safavid army. Pope illustrates one of these dishes (pl. 33 top left), and Misugi Takatoshi another in Chinese Porcelain Collections in the Near East: Topkapi and Ardebil, Hong Kong, 1981, vol. 3, pl. A35. A smaller dish of this design in the Topkapi Saray Museum is illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, London, 1986, vol. 2, no. 600.

The Palace Museum, Beijing, holds two similar dishes, one illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red (I), Shanghai, 2000, pl.56, and again in Geng Baochang, ed., Gugong Bowuyuan cang Ming chu qinghua ci [Early Ming blue-and-white porcelain in the Palace Museum], Beijing, 2002, vol. 1, pl. 42; the other, formerly in the collection of Sun Yingzhou, is found in Geng Baochang, ed., Sun Yingzhou de taoci shijie [Sun Yingzhou's world of ceramics], Beijing, 2003, pl.28. An example in the Jingdezhen Ceramic Museum is published in Chugoku kogei bijutsu sosho: Chugoku toji hen, vol.1: Keitokuchin jiki [Chinese arts and crafts series: Chinese ceramics, vol. 1: Jingdezhen porcelain], Kyoto, 1982, p. 41; and one from the collection of H.M. King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden in Oriental Ceramics: The World's Great Collections, vol. 8, Tokyo, 1982, no. 212.

Four similar dishes were in the past sold in our rooms, but none has been seen at auction in more than 25 years: one from the Palmer collection in London, 27th November 1962, lot 6; another from the Sedgwick and later the Banks collection, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and illustrated in Suzanne G. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989, pl. 145, was sold in London 2nd July 1968, lot 123, and again 30th March 1978, lot 176; the other two in these rooms, 24th November 1981, lot 75 and 18th May 1982, lot 167.