A rare Chinese blue and white double-melon dish Yongle c.1400

A rare Chinese blue and white double-melon dish Yongle c.1400, with an everted rim, painted with two fruits and scrolling leaves, the curvetto with lotus and peonies, the rim with crested waves and the underside with fruiting branches, peaches, lychee and grapes, extensively broken with approximately one half replaced in plaster, 39.8cm. Cf. J. Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, no.3:34 for an almost identical dish, where it is noted that another of this design was excavated in the Yongle stratum at Dongmentou, Zhushan, Jingdezhen in 1994.