A beautiful and large blue and white porcelain plate, Jiajing period (1522-1566)

Finely painted in white and blue; depicting a hill landscape surrounded by water and with a man on a donkey crossing a bridge between two mountains; the border is decorated with a painted band with storks and lotus flowers; finely painted at the back with three pomegranate branches with a bird on top. Chips on the border and a firing damage at the center - diameter 34.5 cm.

Notes: The depicted scene presumably takes place in the Huangshan (literally: "Yellow Mountains") mountains, on the Immortals' Bridge. This landscape inspired a lot of Chinese artists and it can be easily found on several paintings on paper. Moreover, it is quoted in more than twenty-thousand poems from the Tang dynasty (618 – 907) to the Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1908). During the Qin Dynasty (221 a. C. – 206 a. C.) these mountains were known as Yi Shan. The current name was used when the poet Li Bao (701 – 762) used it in 747 in one of his poems. 

A similar plate is at the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul, object TKS 15/3487; TKS 15/1553; TKS 15/1923. 

See the book Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, A complete catalogue, Vol. 2, Yuan and Ming Dinasty Porcelains; Regina Krahl in Collaboration with Nurdan Erbahar, by John Ayens; Sotheby's Pubblication, page 685/6, pic. 1121/22 e page 697, fig. 1169.

Czerny's. CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART