A VERY RARE PAIR OF DOUCAI 'MANDARIN DUCK' DISHES

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.