A rare iron-red and blue and white dragon dish

Description:

China, Xuande six-character mark, Kangxi period
D. 20 cm
The flat, rounded sides, rising from a slightly tapered foot to a gently flared rim, are brightly decorated in underglaze blue on a contrasting iron-red ground, the interior with a central medallion enclosing a five-clawed dragon coiling over a stormy sea. The outside is decorated with nine similar blue dragons striding over red wavy arms, with a six-character Xuande mark on the base within a double ring in underglaze blue.
From an important South German private collection, collected since the 1960s
The dragon motif is rarely seen in this color combination and occurs much more frequently in reverse, with a red dragon between blue waves. However, the combination seen on this bowl was already in use in the early Ming period; compare an unmarked bowl from the Qing court collection, still held in the Palace Museum in Beijing and attributed to the Xuande reign (1426-35 AD), with an additional border on the rim on the outside, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain with Red Underglaze, vol. 1, Shanghai, 2000, fig. 228. Another unmarked bowl of this design, attributed to the late 15th century, was in the collection of the British Rail Pension Fund, sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 16.5.1989, lot 25, illustrated in Sotheby's Hong Kong - Twenty Years, 1973-1993, Hong Kong, 1993, fig. 155. Compare a very similar bowl of this design, with an apocryphal Chenghua mark and with nine blue dragons between red waves on the reverse, from the Gulexuan collection, illustrated in Regina Krahl with Clarissa von Spee, Chinesische Keramik aus der Gulexuan-Sammlung, Lünen, 2003, cat. no. 112. A Kangxi version of this pattern is in the Art Institute of Chicago, in the exhibition Masterpieces of Chinese Arts from the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, 1989, cat. 92; another piece was in the exhibition Chinese Porcelain. The S.C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1987, cat. No. 94 - Few short glaze cracks or fine hairlines to rim, the rim and the stand with very small chip