A RARE CHINESE UNDERGLAZE BLUE AND COPPER-RED 'FIGURAL' DISH

SIX CHARACTER KANGXI MARK AND OF THE PERIOD 1662-1722

The centre decorated with a large star-shaped panel of a lady daydreaming of her beloved, against a powder-blue ground, and a paper label for Marchant, 33cm.

Provenance: from a British private collection, purchased from Marchant, on 7th December 2016, a copy of the invoice is available.

Illustrated: Marchant, Exhibition of Kangxi Underglaze Blue and Copper-Red, 2016, no.12

A pair of dishes from the same set bearing the Kangxi marks is in the Butler Family Collection; one was previousy in the Collection Robert May, Zeist, The Netherlands, illustrated by The Earl of Lytton, Sir William Lllewellyn & Lawrence Binyon in the catalogue International Exhibition of Chinese Art, Royal Academy of Arts, London 1935-6, no.2676, p.231, pl.243.

Dream scenes are rare on Chinese porcelain. A dish dated to Chongzhen (1628-44) in the Shanghai Museum, painted with Simau dreaming of a young woman singing, is illustrated by Antony White, Chen Xiejun and Wang Qingzheng in Seventeenth Century Jingdezhen Porcelain from the Shanghai Museum and the Butler Collections, no30, pp.124-125, where the authors also illustrate a Shunzhi dish (1644-61) from the Butler Family Collecton, painted with a similar scene, no 31, pp.130-131, together with a further dish with a dream scene, also from the Butler Family Collecton, dated to late Shunzhi or early Kangxi with a similar subject to the present dish.