A Rare Ming Porcelain Dish for the Japanese Market from The Peony Pavilion Collection

A Late Ming Blue and White Porcelain Dish for the Japanese Market, Tianqi Period 1620 – 1627. This late Ming porcelain dish would have been a Kaiseki, a serving for the Japanese Tea Ceremony meal. The design is of a monkey walking towards a deer, a wasp above with a bird in flight and a pine tree to the right. 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 entry for these five Ming dishes in the Peony Pavilion Catalogue has a footnote “A related polychrome example is illustrated in Transitional Wares and Their Forerunners, op. cit., p139″. We sold that dish earlier in the year (2020).  See the photograph and reference below the ‘photograph gallery’. The polychrome dish was published and exhibited by the Oriental Ceramics Society of Hong Kong at the Hong Kong Museum of Art in 1981 (see References). There were five of these Ming blue and white Kaiseki dishes sold as lot 294 in the Peony Pavilion Sale in 1989, they came with a box for ten dishes. The other five from the set were sold by Christie’s as lot 295. Box Not Included.

A Ming Porcelain Dish Made for the Japanese Market, Chongzhen Period c.1635-1645. This foliated Transitional Period porcelain dish is painted with bright enamels. The aquatic scene depicts arrowhead  Sagittaria sagittifolia as well as other aquatic plants, there is also a leaping shrimp and a flying insect. The design is taken from a woodblock printed book, first published in the Tianqi period 1621-1627, it was a popular book in Japan, where it was known as Hasshu gafu. This Chinese book Bazhong Huapu ‘Manual of Eight Styles of Painting’ was an eight volume collection. This specific design was taken from the illustration of the poem “Arrowroot” in the sixth volume of Bazhong Huapu. The base has an apocryphal six-character Chenghua mark (Ming Dynasty 1465-1487). For more details see below the ‘Photograph Gallery’ below.

Condition

In excellent condition, a small amount of rubbing to a arrowhead leaf due to a small raised area (firing fault).

A Transitional Porcelain Dish Made for the Japanese Market, Jingdezhen Kilns, Ming Dynasty, Tianqi 1621 – 1628 or Chongzhen Period 1628 – 1644. This Ming porcelain Mukozuke (literally meaning beyond server) dish was made in for the Kaiseki meal that accompanies the Japanese tea ceremony. The hexagonal shallow form has indented corners with a flat broad rim painted in underglaze blue. This blue underglaze decoration is reminiscent of Kraak porcelain, this is perhaps unsurprising as Kraak ware was popular in 17th century Japan. Indeed, recent research has shown that some kilns in Jingdezhen produced porcelain for the Japanese market also made Kraak ware. The overglaze colours consist of a thickly applied translucent green enamel, a similar but paler green, there is also mustard yellow and aubergine. The red and black decoration is different, it sits flat on the surface of the porcelain, perhaps suggesting little or no glass binder was used. The central decoration depicts a pomegranate branch with three ripe pomegranates bursting open, their seeds of differing colours. A cicada and a grasshopper are feasting on the sweet open fruit. The cavetto has three cartouches decorated with flowering plants in enamel, colours set against a blue diaper patterns of cash (coins, meaning wealth), swastika (conducive to well-being) and a honeycomb design. The other three inverted triangular panels show a solitary seated figure on a promontory with a landscape in underglaze blue. Only one of the dishes from this group of six has an apocryphal Chenghua mark (Ming dynasty 1465-1487).