DIMENSIONS

Diameter: 4 ¼ inches

 

PROVENANCE

• E.C. Kostolany Collection, no. CE 04

• Ben Janssens Oriental Art, London, 1999

 

CATALOGUE NOTES

A pair of dishes with foliate rims. The center is decorated in reverse technique with a dappled horse leaping over wild waves in which prunus heads are scattered. The reverse of the dishes in similarly decorated. The center of the base is inscribed with a six-character Jiajing mark. It is rare to find blue and white porcelain of this period decorated in the "reverse" technique.

 

RELATED EXAMPLES

A similar dish of slightly larger size with the reign mark of Hongguang (1644-45) is in the Percival David Collection, London. It is illustrated in Oriental Blue and White by Sir Harry Garner, plate 64A. Another similar dish with a spurious Chenghua mark is in the collection of Sir Michael Butler and illustrated in Seventeenth Century Chinese Porcelain from the Butler Family Collection, plate 66, page 113. In the accompanying text, the author mentions that "smaller saucers with the same decoration were recovered in the Hatcher wreck."