A LARGE BLUE AND WHITE PEONIES AND ROCK PORCELAIN CHARGER

Description:

China, 15th/16 th c.
D. 51,5 cm
The deep rounded sides supported on a tapering foot, the central medallion painted in varied cobalt-blue tones with four large peony blooms amid leafy bushes emerging from craggy rockwork within a classic scroll border, the well encircled with a band of camellia issuing leaves between double circles, the rim with a scrolling band, the base unglazed.
Old European private collection, assembled before 1980
Dishes of large size and depth, such as the present example, would have been particularly valued by wealthy buyers from the Middle-East during the 15th and 16th centuries as the ample form suited the prevailing custom for communal dining. Compare two dishes in the Topkapi Saray Museum of the same pattern illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, cat. II, London, 1986, cat. nos. 724 and 725; the latter also illustrated in Soame Jenyns,Chinese Art, London, 1964-66, pl. 53b and Sekai toji zenshu, vol. 14, Tokyo, 1976, p. 229, fig. 5 (II). Another dish painted with a very similar design but with a peacock perched on the rockwork preserved in the Ardebil Shrine, Iran, and illustrated ibid, no. 717. A nearly identical dish was sold at Sotheby's Hongkong, 5.11.1996, lot 680 - Short loss to the foot rim