A Pair of Famille-Rose Ruby-Ground Small Dishes. Blue Enamel Marks and Period of Yongzheng - Photo Sotheby's
the shallow rounded sides resting on a short slightly tapered foot, the exterior decorated with foliate sprays of chrysanthemum against a crushed-raspberry ground, the blooms detailed with white lobed petals and shaded in pale yellow at the centre, the leaves picked out in turquoise and pale green with darker veins, the interior left white, the bases inscribed with a blue enamel four-character mark within a double square; 9 cm., 3 1/2 in. Estimation: 1,000,000 - 1,500,000 HKD - Unsold
PROVENANCE: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 29th October 1991, lot 247.
NOTE DE CATALOGUE: Related dishes enamelled with this charming design, but of slightly larger dimensions, include one shown in the Special Exhibition of Ch’ing Dynasty Porcelain of the Imperial Ateliers, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1992, cat. no. 96; another sold in these rooms, 5th November 1996, lot 877, and again in our London rooms, 11th May 2011, lot 149; and a third sold in these rooms, 29th October 2001, lot 591, and again at Christie’s Hong Kong, 1st June 2011, lot 3649.
Compare Yongzheng mark and period dishes of this type but painted with various flora and fauna on coloured grounds, such as two depicting prunus blossoms included in the Catalogue of a Special Exhibition of Ch'ing-dynasty Painted Enamels, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1984, cat. nos. 54 and 57, one on a blue ground, the other on a ruby ground; and a dish enamelled with bamboo on a lilac ground, in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., published in Hugh Moss, By Imperial Command. An Introduction to Ch’ing Imperial Painted Enamels, Hong Kong, 1976, pl. 57.
Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art. Hong Kong | 09 oct. 2012 www.sothebys.com