Large Chinese Ming Dynasty Blue & White Porcelain Dish - Binh Thuan

This blue & white "Swatow" porcelain dish was made during the Wanli Reign (1573 - 1620) of the Ming Dynasty. It is coated in a thick crackled glaze and decorated in underglaze cobalt blue of very good colour. The decoration is the "double phoenix" pattern, two phoenixes standing facing each other, presumably male and female, surrounded by foliage and peony blossoms. Swatow, or Zhangzhou ceramics, were often exported to the South East Asian market. A common feature of such ware is the sand / kiln grit that adheres to the glaze on the underside. 

This example was excavated from the "Binh Thuan" shipwreck for which there is evidence suggesting it was the junk owned by a merchant, I Sin Ho, that sank in 1608 off the south of Vietnam on its way from China to Johore whilst transporting a cargo for the Dutch. The "Binh Thuan" shipwreck was first discovered in 2001. The wreck was subsequently excavated by Maritime Explorations in conjunction with the Vietnam Salvage Corporation (Visal), the Binh Thuan People's Committee, and the Ministry of Culture. The quality of the dishes from this wreck varied greatly from broken and damaged dishes, or intact dishes but with poor colour, to superior examples in perfect condition with the underglaze cobalt blue of very good colour. Although this example does have a very small filled chip to the vulnerable rim edge, it is a superior example, categorised as "A+" quality.

For information: we originally purchased this example, together with others, direct from one of the Australian investors of the recovery project in 2004. We then sold it to a local collector and now, some twenty years later, have recently re-acquired it.

Diameter 26.5 cm (10.5 inches). A fine and superior example of its type.

A very good and highly recommended reference book for "Swatow" export ceramics that includes two dishes with this pattern is "Zhangzhou Ware Found in the Philippines" by Rita C. Tan (ISBN 978-971-93896-0-6). Our final image shows the examples from that book.

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