Fine Large Chinese Ming Dynasty Blue & White Porcelain Dish

This blue & white "Swatow" porcelain dish, or shallow bowl, was made during the Wanli Reign (1573 - 1620) of the Ming Dynasty. It is coated in a thick glaze and decorated in underglaze cobalt blue. The decoration features a pheasant in a garden. The inner wall is undecorated and around the flat rim there are six roundels containing floral patterns surrounded by a repeating diaper pattern. The underside is sparsely decorated with just two single blue bands. 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.

Diameter 28.5 cm (11.25 inches). This dish is a superior example of its type in fine condition and has no restoration or repair.

A very good and highly recommended reference book for "Swatow" export ceramics that includes a similar example 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 example from that book (it is our opinion that our example is finer than the one shown in that book!).

For information: we originally sold this dish in 2003 to a local collector and have recently re-acquired it. Although we no longer have the catalogue, we think this is one of four Swatow dishes we originally purchased from Sotheby's, London in their February 2003 "Japanese & Chinese Works of Art" sale.

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