AN UNDERGLAZE-BLUE AND YELLOW-ENAMEL 'GARDENIA' DISH MARK AND PERIOD OF ZHENGDE

the saucer-shaped dish with shallow rounded sides supported on a short tapered foot, the interior freely painted in shaded tones of cobalt blue with a leafy branch bearing two five-petalled gardenia blooms and a tightly closed bud, encircled on the cavetto by fruiting branches of pomegranate, grape, peach and a ribbon-tied lotus bouquet, all between double-line borders, the underside with a continuous floral scroll of large blooming roses borne on a foliate stem, between double lines at the rim and foot, all reserved on a deep yellow enamel ground, the base glazed white and inscribed with a six-character reign mark within a double ring in underglaze blue

Evolution to Perfection. Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection/Evolution vers la perfection. Céramiques de Chine de la Collection Meiyintang, Sporting d’Hiver, Monte Carlo, 1996, cat. no. 126.

Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 2, no. 683.

There are two hairline cracks at the rim (approx. 4.2 and 3 cm, going partly through at 11 and 5 o'clock), and four other, some rather faint, hairlines to the surface glaze inside the rim (from 1.5 to 2.5 cm, including one with two associated minute flakes on the surface at 7 o'clock, and another going partly over the rim at 4 o'clock). There is some mild wear and a few light scratches to the glaze on the interior. The yellow ground is of a somewhat deeper and richer tone and the blue more pale grey, less cobalt, than the illustration would suggest in the catalogue.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This striking yellow-and-blue colour scheme appears to have come into use in the Xuande reign (AD 1426-35) and the present design remained popular at Jingdezhen from the Xuande right through to the Jiajing period (AD 1522-66). Soame Jenyns, Ming Pottery and Porcelain, London, 1953, pls. 56 and 57a (rev. ed. 1988, pls. 102-4 and col. pl. H) illustrates four different examples, two of the Xuande and Chenghua (AD 1465-87) periods from the British Museum, London, a Hongzhi (AD 1488-1505) dish from the Riesco collection, Croyden, and a Zhengde  (AD 1506-21) piece from the Sir Percival David Collection, now also in the British Museum; a rare Jiajing dish of this design in the Meiyintang collection is illustrated in Krahl, op. cit., vol. 2, no. 684.

Zhengde dishes of this design are known with both four and six-character reign marks. An example of each, again in the British Museum, is published in Jessica Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, pls. 8: 23 and 24. Another similar dish with a six-character mark in the Shanghai Museum is illustrated in Lu Minghua, Shanghai Bowuguan zangpin yanjiu daxi/Studies of the Shanghai Museum Collections : A Series of Monographs. Mingdai guanyao ciqi [Ming imperial porcelain], Shanghai, 2007, pl. 1-41; one with a four-character mark in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is included in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red, vol. 2, Shanghai, 2000, pl. 233, together with Chenghua and Hongzhi prototypes, pls. 230 and 231. On Zhengde versions the fruit and flower sprays can be differently distributed around the central motif.