Live Auction 18823Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art
A VERY RARE PAIR OF DOUCAI 'MANDARIN DUCK' DISHES
Lot 1830 THE PROPERTY OF A NORTH AMERICAN COLLECTOR

A VERY RARE PAIR OF DOUCAI 'MANDARIN DUCK' DISHES

YONGZHENG SIX-CHARACTER MARKS IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE WITHIN DOUBLE CIRCLES AND OF THE PERIOD (1723-1735)

Closed25 September 2020

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USD 187,500

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A VERY RARE PAIR OF DOUCAI 'MANDARIN DUCK' DISHES
YONGZHENG SIX-CHARACTER MARKS IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE WITHIN DOUBLE CIRCLES AND OF THE PERIOD (1723-1735)
The interior of each dish is delicately decorated in the center with a scene of two mandarin ducks swimming in a pond around a large lotus plant rising from the rippling water, the design repeated as a frieze on the exterior below a narrow band of six five-clawed dragons chasing flaming pearls, all within blue line borders.
6 5/8 in. (17.4 cm.) diam., cloth boxes

Mrs. Carsten D. Muller Collection.
Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., 13-14 February 1952, lot 192.

Specialist note


A few doucai dishes of this particular pattern and size have been published. A similar example dated to the Yongzheng period is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 38 - Wucai, Doucai, Beijing, 1999, no. 216. Another example is in The Metropolitan Museum of Art and illustrated in Oriental Ceramics in the World's Great Collections, 1982, vol. 11, no. 144. A pair of similar dishes, also dated to the Yongzheng period, is illustrated by E.T. Chow and F.S. Drake "Kuan-Yao and Min-Yao, A Study on Imperial Porcelain and People's Porcelain from K'ang-hsi to the end of the Ch'ing Dynasty", Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America, XIII, 1959, pl. I, figs. I and 2. Another pair is illustrated in Ch'ing Porcelain from the Wah Kwong Collection, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1973, no. 85; and again in Ming and Ch'ing Porcelain from the Collection of the T.Y. Chao Family Foundation, Hong Kong, 1978, no. 62, and was subsequently sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 19 May 1987, lot 268.