A blue and white 'Lotus Bouquet' dish, Ming dynasty, Yongle period (1403-1425)

Lot 37. A blue and white 'Lotus Bouquet' dish, Ming dynasty, Yongle period (1403-1425); 27.6 cm., 10 7/8 in. Estimate 1,200,000 — 1,500,000 HKD. Lot sold 2,900,000 HKD. Photo Sotheby's.

the shallow rounded sides rising from a flat base and a tapered foot, well painted on the interior in deep cobalt blue with a lotus bouquet of flowers, buds, leaves and a pod tied together with arrow-head and other water plants, encircled on the cavetto with a composite flower scroll of camellia, hibiscus, pomegranate, tree peony, rose, lotus and chrysanthemum, all repeated twice except the pomegranate, all below a band of 'classic' scroll around the mouth, the exterior with a similar composite scroll of flowers  between a band of key-fret at the mouth and 'classic' scroll above the foot, the base left unglazed.

Provenance: Christie's London, 4th June 1973, lot 106.

Literature: S.T. Yeo and Jean Martin, Chinese Blue and White Ceramics, Singapore, 1978, p. 84 bottom, fig. 29.
Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 2, no. 665.

Note: The lotus-bouquet motif, with its unexpected combination of lotus flowers, leaves and water weeds, tied with a ribbon and evoking strikingly coloured lotus ponds in full bloom during summer, became very popular in the Yongle period. Dishes of this small size, typically more finely painted than the larger version, are, however, comparatively rare. Of thirty-four lotus-bouquet dishes recorded from the Ardabil Shrine in Iran, only three are of this small size, two of them with wave rim borders and one probably of the present type; see John Alexander Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, Washington, D.C., 1956, pls 30 and 31, nos. 29.16, 17, and 32. Compare also a similar dish from the Greenwald collection, recently sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 1st December 2010, lot 2803.

A fine and rare early Ming blue and white 'lotus bouquet' dish. Yongle period (1403-1425), from the Greenwald collection; 11 in. (28 cm.) diam. Sold for HK$2,180,000 ($281,875) at Christie's Hong Kong, 1st December 2010, lot 2803. © Christie's Images Ltd 2010

Cf. my post: Ming blue and white @ Christie's. For Imperial Appreciation: Fine Chinese Ceramics from the Greenwald Collection

The design was revived again by the imperial kilns during the Yongzheng (AD 1723-35) and Qianlong (AD 1736-95) periods of the Qing dynasty; compare three revival dishes in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Geng Baochang, ed., Gugong Bowuyuan cang Ming chu qinghua ci [Early Ming blue-and-white porcelain in the Palace Museum], Beijing, 2002, vol. II, pls. 195, 199, and 203.

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection, Part III - An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains, Hong Kong | 04 avr. 2012