A rare blue and white 'lotus' dish, Mark and period of Wanli | 明萬曆 青花梵文蓮瓣盤 《大明萬曆年製》款

Bluett & Sons, London.

S. Marchant & Son, London.

Bluett & Son，倫敦

馬錢特，倫敦

Deftly modelled in the form of a blooming lotus, the present dish belongs to a group of official wares which was produced only during the Wanli period. A similar dish is preserved in the Shanghai Museum and included in Lu Minghua, Mingdai guanyao ciqi [Ming imperial porcelain], Shanghai, 2007, pl. 3-94, where the author suggests that with the Sanskrit seed syllables, this type of dishes were probably made for temples within the Forbidden City or other Buddhist sanctuaries, p. 165. Although the same character is always inscribed at the centre, these dishes tend to have slightly different combinations of seed syllables on the exterior.

Similar examples can be found in major museums and collections worldwide, such as a dish from the Qing court collection in the Palace Museum, Taipei, included in The Magic of Kneaded Clay: Ceramic Collection of the Palace Museum, Taipei, 2014, cat. no. III-18; one illustrated in Minji meihin zuroku [Illustrated catalogue of important Ming porcelains], vol. 3, Tokyo, 1978, pl. 90; one published in the Illustrated Catalogue of Tokyo National Museum. Chinese Ceramics, vol. II, Tokyo, 1990, pl. 113; another illustrated in John Ayers, The Baur Collection, Chinese Ceramics, vol. 2, Genèva, 1969, pl. A185; and a fourth example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, included in Suzanne E. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989, pl. 177, where it is suggested that dishes of this type were produced in the latter years of the Wanli reign, p. 197. A dish of this type, formerly in the collection of the Manno Art Museum, was sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 28th October 2002, lot 529, and again in these rooms, 4th April 2012, lot 3169.