Ref: Y625
Archive item - not for sale
Chinese blue and white dish, Wanli (1573-1619), with slight foliate rim, decorated in the centre with a medallion enclosing two scholars seated in a fenced garden with rockwork, the cavetto with a garland of stylized flowers, the border with eight radiating panels alternately decorated with transitional style landscape scenes depicting a seated scholar and various Asian ships sailing on rough seas, divided by narrow panels containing sprays of flowers, diameter: 11 3/16in., 28.4cm; condition: 2 small glaze faults to central roundel, firing-crack to underside of rim, minute frits to rim. Kraak dishes with sailing ship borders are rare and the origin of the motif is unknown. Three Chinese kraak dishes with similar borders can be found in the Topkapi Saray Museum, see Krahl and Ayers, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Vol II (London, 1986), pp. 803-4 for an illustrated example. SOLD
