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 adorned at the bottom with a lively scene of literati in a palace garden—books, wenfang attributes, a moon gate, a scholar’s rock—in an entourage of four mang dragons with four claws, polychrome, evolving among foaming waves (haishui longwen). The wing with a yellow ground 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 band with blue rocaille scrolls, the wing with branches of plum blossom and bamboo.

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

Diameter: about 40 cm.

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