A Ming Blue and White Pheonix Dish c.1560 – 1580.

A Rare Ming Porcelain Dish, Longqing Mark and of the Period 1567-1572. The saucer-shaped dish of shallow form is decorated in a strong cobalt blue with three phoenix around three clouds and the sun at the center. The base has a small under-glaze blue Longqing mark (1567-1572). It is tempting to think of all Imperial Porcelain being of the very highest quality, but this is not always the case. Firstly, there were differing qualities of porcelain produced depending on who the ceramics were made for, not all Imperial orders ended up on the Emperor’s table. Some pieces were made for less important buildings within the Forbidden City, others were made as tributes or gifts. Large numbers of more ordinary pieces might be commissioned. While other more sophisticated pieces would be very produced in very limited numbers for the Emperor’s private use. The quality also depended on the degree in which the Emperor cared about ceramics, and indeed sometimes Emperors had more pressing things on their mind, like uprisings and wars. The present example is imperial, but might not have been used by the emperor. This dish is important in that it ties production to a very specific point in time, something that would be very difficult to establish without the Longqing mark dating it to 1567-1572, a mere six years. The the two dishes are of the same quality. Jiajing was known to place imperial orders with non-imperial kilns, simply because the imperial kilns couldn’t keep up with the orders. So it makes sense that the present dish was also an imperial order carried out at a public kiln on behalf of the emperor Longqing.

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