A FINELY PAINTED BLUE AND WHITE BARBED 'FLORAL' CHARGER MING DYNASTY, YONGLE PERIOD |

with shallow rounded sides divided into twelve bracket foliations, rising from a short circular tapered foot to a barbed everted rim, exquisitely painted in shades of cobalt blue with 'heaping and piling', the interior with a central peony bloom wreathed by meandering scrolls of camellia, rose, lotus and hibiscus blossoms, the cavetto with detached sprays of peony, chrysanthemum, pomegranate, hibiscus, morning glory and lotus, each repeated twice and paired across the dish, all within a border of scrolling ruyi heads between double lines at the rim, the exterior with similar detached floral sprays within double-line borders, wood stand

The present charger is a fine example of the technical developments achieved by potters during the early Ming dynasty. One of the most striking decorative innovations of early 15th century wares was the use of separate floral sprays in the cavettos instead of the continuous scroll. The heavy wreath of lotus or peony found on 14th century dishes gave way to a series of delicate and more varied motifs. Two sets of six flower sprays were commonly repeated so that each pair of flowers sat diagonally opposite each other.

A closely related charger in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, was included in the Special Exhibition of Early Ming Period Porcelain, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1982, cat. no. 37; one in the National Museum of China is published in Zhongguo Guojia Bowuguan guancang wenwu yanjiu congshu/Studies on the Collections of the National Museum of China, Ciqi juan: Mingdai [Porcelain section: Ming dynasty], Shanghai, 2007, pl. 20; another in the British Museum, London, is illustrated in Jessica Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics, London, 2001, pl. 3:35; and a fourth example, published in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 2, London, 1994, pl. 663, was sold in these rooms, 8th April 2013, lot 20. Three further chargers from the Ardebil Shrine in the National Museum of Iran, Tehran, are included in John Alexander Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, Washington, D.C., 1956, pl. 35; and a charger in the British Museum is shown next to a related pottery copy from Iznik in Turkey in Jessica Rawson, Chinese Ornament. The Lotus and the Dragon, London, 1984, pl. 163. See also a charger of this type in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in Pleasingly Pure and Lustrous: Porcelains from the Yongle Reign of the Ming Dynasty. Guidebook, Taipei, 2017, pp. 70-71. Another related charger formerly in the collection of Mr and Mrs Eugene Bernat was recently sold in these rooms, 3rd October 2018, lot 140, also from the collection of Sir Quo-Wei Lee. Although examples of this exact design have not been recorded from the excavations of the Ming imperial kiln site, similar large dishes of this form, painted with related designs, have come to light in the Yongle stratum of the site; see, for example, the dish included in the exhibition Yongle Imperial Porcelain Excavated at Zhushan, Jingdezhen, Capital Museum, Beijing, 2007, cat. no. 68.