A Large Blue and White Dish Ming dynasty, early 15th century

of shallow form and gently curved sides, painted overall in vibrant underglaze blue with marked 'heaped and piled' effect under a bubble-suffused glaze, the interior well-decorated with a large medallion featuring a composite scroll of flowerheads and buds surrounding a large central flowerhead, their corresponding stems and leaves whimsically encircling each flower, the cavetto with a band of eleven scrolling flowers, the same motif repeated on the exterior, all below an everted rim displaying a border of cresting waves, the wedge-shaped foot ring exhibiting hints of the slightly orange-burnt body

Collection of Captain S. N. Ferris Luboshez, USN (ret'd) (until 1982).
Sotheby's New York, 18th November 1982, lot 94.
Thereafter with the present owners.

Chinese Art from the Ferris Luboshez Collection, University of Maryland Art Gallery, Maryland, 1972, cat. no. 130, fig. 40.

The dish was misfired resulting in the runny underglaze-blue, particularly to the exterior. There is a 3 3/4 inch haircrack from the rim, with an associated smaller crack running along the rim and exterior, approximately 1 inch long, ending in a tiny triangular glaze chip. The foot is slightly uneven, resulting in a minor wobble. With expected small areas of kiln grit to the foot.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Yongle dishes of this design are known to have been made by the Ming Imperial kilns at Jingdezhen and similar examples have entered both the Chinese Imperial collection as well as the collections of sultanates in the Near and Middle East and the Imperial collection in India.

A fragmentary dish of this type, excavated from the waste heaps of the Ming Imperial kiln site at Zhushan, Jingdezhen, was included in the exhibition Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain Excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1996, cat. no. 44. See also a dish in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Minji meihin zuroku, vol. 1, Tokyo, 1997, pl. 37; one from the ancestral shrine of Shah Abbas at Ardebil, Iran, published in John Alexander Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, Washington, D.C., 1956, pl. 34, no. 29.88; and a third dish included in T. Mitsugi, Chinese Porcelain Collection in the Near East, vol. 3, Hong Kong, 1981, no. A36.

A dish inscribed in Farsi with the name of Shah Jahan is illustrated in Peter Hardie, 'China's Ceramic Trade with India', Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 48, 1983-84, figs. 3 and 4, sold in our London rooms, 19th June 1984, lot 249. Compare also a dish illustrated in John Ayers, Chinese Ceramics in the Baur Collection, Geneva, 1999, pl. 61; one from the collections of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Bernat and T.Y. Chao, sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 18th November 1986, lot 35; another example, from the Ira and Nancy Koger collection, sold in our London rooms, 16th November 1971, lot 89, and offered in these rooms, 27th November 1990, lot 2; and one formerly in the Le May collection and later in the collection of Sir Alan and Lady Barlow, illustrated in Michael Sullivan, Chinese Ceramics, Bronzes and Jades in the Collection of Sir Alan and Lady Barlow, London, 1963, pl. 131a, no. C140, and sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 14th November 1989, lot 17, and again at Christie's Hong Kong, 28th April 1997, lot 654.