Dish - Enamel, Copper - Imperial Canton Email

Of large size and circular shape with a polylobed rim, resting on three bronze feet of origin. The interior is decorated at the bottom with an animated scene of literati in a palace garden — books, wenfang attributes, moon gate, scholar’s rock — in the company of four mang dragons with four-clawed polychrome features evolving among the foaming waves (haishui longwen). The wing on a yellow ground is decorated with peony scrolls and ruyi cartouches. The reverse is finely painted with the sanduo motif (pomegranate, peach, citron, symbols of abundance) and peonies around a central medallion with blue scrolls, the celadon belt with blue rocaille volutes, the wing with branches of plum and bamboo.

The yellow background associated with princely rank dragons suggests an ostentatious commission; comparable Canton enamelware were presented as tribute to the imperial court by the Guangdong customs.

Diameter: about 40 cm.

Significant enamel accidents and losses to the enamel, notably at the center of the basin and on the reverse; network of crazing; the remaining decoration retains a great freshness.