23. M4757
£12,500
Description
Chinese ceramic sancai, three-colour glazed small dish, pan, with carved design of two ripe pomegranates issuing from a single branch amongst leaves, the fruit painted in yellow with brown speckles predominantly on a white ground within a yellow border incised with two rings and a wide green band in the cavetto covering the rim, the flat base and short foot rim unglazed revealing the buff-coloured body beneath a wide band of white slip.
5 5/8 inches, 14.3 cm diameter.
Late Liao – Jin dynasty, 12th century.
Provenance & Additional Information
- From an important private Swiss collection.
- A similar dish is illustrated by Brian McElney in Chinese Ceramics, Volume 1, The Museum of East Asian Art, Bath, Inaugural Exhibition, no. 100, p. 146.
- A series of seven related dishes, one in the Tokyo National Museum with two fish, another with a duck, another with a bird and four with different flowers, are illustrated by Junkichi Mayuyama in Mayuyama, Seventy Years, Volume One, nos. 646, 647, 649-653, pp. 214/5; another floral one with similar brown speckles, is illustrated by Li Huibing in Porcelain of the Song Dynasty (I), The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Beijing, volume 32, no. 259, p. 285; another with a duck, from the Eumorfopoulos Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is illustrated by Rose Kerr in Song Dynasty Ceramics, pl. 72, p. 73; another with a fish sold by J. J. Lally & Co., New York, is illustrated by Regina Krahl in Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Volume Three (I), no. 1334, pp. 312/3, where the author notes that these dishes are now generally attributed to the Jin dynasty and that the centre has three small spur marks; the author also notes that the dish was probably fired upside down, since the green glazed has pooled around the rim.
Condition
Excellent, natural fire imperfections, the front with three spur marks.
