AN IMPERIAL WUCAI FLOWER PORCELAIN PLATE

Description:

China, underglaze blue Wanli mark and period
D. 30 cm
The interior decorated with four large iron-red enameled peony blooms reserved on a ground of green and blue foliage, encircled on the cavetto with a border boughs of lychee, pomegranate, peach, and gourd, the exterior with a continuous lotus meander, the base inscribed with a six-character reign mark in underglaze blue within double-circles.
South German private collection, bought from Sotheby's Paris; 15.12.2011, lot 79
Wanli polychrome dishes of related floral pattern, varying slightly in size, can be found in the Idemitsu Museum of Art, Tokyo, illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1987, pl. 207 (colour); another in the Ataka collection, Tokyo, is published in Masterpieces of Chinese and Korean Ceramics in the Ataka Collection, Tokyo, 1980, pl. 119. Compare a dish in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, included in Suzanne G. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989, pl. 178, from the Rogers Fund; and another dish with the design reserved in white on a blue-ground, bearing the double circle and imperial reign mark of Wank, in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, published in T. Misugi, Chinese Porcelain Collections in the Near East, Topkapi and Ardebil, vol. 2, Hong Kong, 1981, p. 129. pl. T60.
Minor wear, traces of use