A RARE LARGE CHINESE BLUE AND WHITE DISH

SIX CHARACTER KANGXI MARK AND EARLY IN THE PERIOD 1662-1722

Painted with a lady standing in a garden wearing flowing robes, she holds a fan in one hand and a sprig of osmanthus held up towards the sun in the other, she presents the flower to a young boy, the reverse with a paper label for Marchant, 35.8cm.

Provenance: from a British private collection, purchased from Marchant, London, on 4th December 2002. A copy of the invoice is available.

The Chinese word for osmanthus is guihua which is homophonous with guizi meaning 'your honourable son'. The image of a lady pointing osmanthus towards the sun therefore expresses the wish for a son to be a scholar-official holding a high position in court. The bamboo in the background is emblematic of the scholar's upright character because it is a tough plant which bends in the storm but never breaks. The plum blossom is also symbolic of the moral strength required to be an official, as they are hardy plants which survive through the winter.

Cf. S Marchant & Son, Exhibition of Seventeenth-Century Blue and White and Copper-red and their Predecessors, p.50, no.48 for a similar dish with this design; see also R Chen, Qing Shunzhi Kangxi Chao Qinghua Ci (Qing Dynasty Shunzhi and Kangxi Blue and White Porcelain), p.123, no.61 for a similarly painted Kangxi dish in the collection of the Palace Museum; see also M Butler and Q Wang, Seventeenth Century Jingdezhen Porcelain from the Shanghai Museum and the Butler Collections, pp.132-133, no.32 for another related example.