A yellow-glazed 'chrysanthemum' dish, Mark and period of Yongzheng | 清雍正 黃釉菊瓣盤 《大清雍正年製》款

A.G. Langlois, Jersey, 20th September 1965, lot 32.

Collection of Dr Wou Kiuan (1910-1997).

Wou Lien-Pai Museum, 1968-present, coll. no. Q.8.14.

A.G. Langlois，澤西行政區，1965年9月20日，編號32

吳權博士 (1910-1997) 收藏

吳蓮伯博物院，1968年至今，編號Q.8.14

Rose Kerr et al., Chinese Antiquities from the Wou Kiuan Collection. Wou Lien-Pai Museum, Hong Kong, 2011, pl. 147.

柯玫瑰等，《Chinese Antiquities from the Wou Kiuan Collection. Wou Lien-Pai Museum》，香港，2011年，圖版147

Well potted with narrow fluted sides and even pointed tips resembling the petals of a chrysanthemum flower, this dish belongs to a select group of porcelain made during the Yongzheng period (1723-1735). The Yongzheng Emperor is recorded to have commissioned Nian Xiyao, Supervisor of the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen, to produce chrysanthemum dishes in twelve colours, forty pieces of each. The commission is dated the 27th day of the 12th month of the 11th year of the Yongzheng reign, corresponding to 1733. However, no original complete set of twelve dishes is preserved and chrysanthemum dishes of the Yongzheng period are known in many more than twelve colours. The Palace Museum, Beijing, has indeed published dishes covered in thirteen different tones, which have been assembled from different sources, and at least six further colours are recorded elsewhere. Hajni Elias in 'In the path of Tao Qian: "Chrysanthemum" wares of the Yongzheng emperor', Arts of Asia, May-June 2015, pp. 72-85, discusses the development of chrysanthemum-shaped porcelain wares in the Yongzheng period and suggests that they may reveal the Emperor's admiration for one of China's most famous poets, Tao Qian (365-427). A scholar-official who retired to his homeland in Chaisang, present-day Jiujiang in Jiangxi province, he is known for is pastoral lifestyle and for having created the so-called 'farmstead poetry' (tianyuan shi) which was inspired by his chrysanthemum garden as well as the natural landscape and pastoral scenes. These themes were particularly relevant to the Yongzheng Emperor, who was an advocate of farming and manual labour.

A symbol of autumn and of the ninth month of the year, the chrysanthemum flower provided much inspiration to potters and craftsmen from as early as the Song dynasty. These early chrysanthemum-shaped wares, which were made in a variety of materials, probably inspired the form of these dishes. A lacquer chrysanthemum dish, attributed to the Song dynasty, was included in the exhibition The Monochrome Principle. Lacquerware and Ceramics of the Song and Qing Dynasties, Museum für Lackkunst, Münster, 2008, cat. no. 13, together with a moulded Ding chrysanthemum dish, cat. no. 14. 

Related examples include one in the Percival David Foundation, British Museum, London, illustrated in Rosemary Scott, Illustrated Catalogue of Ming and Qing Monochrome Wares in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, 1989, pl. B597; and four dishes in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Wang Jianhua, Yongzheng shierse jubanpan [Twelve-coloured chrysanthemum dishes of the Yongzheng period], Forbidden City, vol. 167, Beijing, 2008, p. 82, where the author identified the different types of yellow-glazed chrysanthemum dishes in the museum's collection.