Two blue and white ko-sometsuke 'shoulao' and 'figural' dishes, Ming dynasty, Tianqi period

Japanese Private Collection.

The smaller: Hirano, Osaka, 1980 (by repute).

The shards of an identical 'shoulao' dish excavated at Jingdezhen were included in Huang Qinghua, Colourful Japan – The Special Exhibition of the Ordered Porcelains at the End of the Ming Dynasty From Japan, Jingdezhen, 2021, p. 13 and 41, cat. no. 31; and another similar dish of slightly smaller size is illustrated in Masahiko Kawahara, Ko-sometsuke, Monochrome Section, Kyoto, 1977, cat. no. 582.

For similar 'figural' dishes from the same set as the present, compare two illustrated in Masahiko Kawahara, op. cit., cat. nos 128 and 600; and another, also from the same set, from the Effie B. Allison Collection is preserved in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, and published in Julia B. Curtis, Trade Taste & Transformation, Jingdezhen Porcelain for Japan 1620-1645, New York, 2006, cat. no. 36, where the author notes "Both Kawahara and Kilburn refer to the story illustrated on these plates as the 'brine-dripping' scene."

Also compare a similar set of five figural dishes sold at Christie's London, 12th June 1989, lot 259; another with a similar central scene surrounded by a continuous border of petal tips, exhibited in Ming Porcelain for the Japanese Market, ko-sometsuke & ko-akai, Marchant, London, 2008, cat. no. 27; and another in Richard S. Kilburn Transitional Wares and Their Forerunners, Hong Kong, 1981, cat. no. 131.