A Ming Wucai Porcelain Kaiseki Serving Dish, Early Chongzhen Period c.1635. This Transitional Porcelain dish was made for the Japanese market for use in the Tea Ceremony. This sturdy dish is painted in under-glaze cobalt blue with the addition of overglazed red, yellow and green. The design if of a monkey seated on a rocky outcrop below a fruiting peach tree with a deer in front of him and two wasps below a bird in flight. Parts of this design forms the rebus, juelu fenghou, meaning 'may you receive high rank and emolument'. The elements taken from the design to create the rebus are ; monkey is hou with a deer lu and wasps feng. The peach reprents the wish for long life. This dish is published in 'Transitional Wares and Their Forerunners' An exhibition presented by the Oriental Ceramics Society of Hong Kong at the Hong Kong Museum of Art in 1981 (see References). RESERVED UNTIL MONDAY 16TH