Dish with coxcomb and rock design

Clay: fine white porcelain.
Glaze: transparent, thick, some orange peel effect.
Decoration: un underglaze blue, a central landscape with rock, coxcomb, etc., and eight flower and fruit sprays in cavetto. Outside, the three friends. The identification of the plants in the cavetto is (probably): chrysanthemum, peach, rose, loquat, day lily, persimmon, blackberry lily, camellia.

Historical period(s)
Ming dynasty, Yongle reign, 1403-1424
Medium
Porcelain with cobalt under transparent colorless glaze
Style
Jingdezhen ware
Dimensions
H x W x D: 9.5 x 68 x 68 cm (3 3/4 x 26 3/4 x 26 3/4 in)
Geography
China, Jiangxi province, Jingdezhen
Credit Line
Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment
Collection
Freer Gallery of Art
Accession Number
F1961.14
On View Location
Freer Gallery 13: Looking Out, Looking In: Art in Late Imperial China
Classification(s)
Ceramic, Vessel
Type

Dish

Keywords
China, flower, fruit, Jingdezhen ware, landscape, Ming dynasty (1368 - 1644), porcelain, Yongle reign (1403 - 1424)
Provenance

To 1961
J. T. Tai & Co., New York, New York. [1]

From 1961
Freer Gallery of Art, purchased from J. T. Tai & Co., New York, New York. [2]

Notes:

[1] See object file, Collections Management Office.

[2] See note 1.

Previous Owner(s) and Custodian(s)

J.T. Tai & Co. established in 1950

Description

Clay: fine white porcelain.
Glaze: transparent, thick, some orange peel effect.
Decoration: un underglaze blue, a central landscape with rock, coxcomb, etc., and eight flower and fruit sprays in cavetto. Outside, the three friends. The identification of the plants in the cavetto is (probably): chrysanthemum, peach, rose, loquat, day lily, persimmon, blackberry lily, camellia.

Label

The viewer of this exceptionally large dish seems to stand within a spacious garden. An ornamental rock serves as the focal point, and plants bloom lushly on the near and far sides of a small pond or stream. The garden represents all seasons: spring primrose and narcissus join autumn cockscomb.  Eight sprays of flowers and fruit circle the rim, while pine, flowering plum, and bamboo--the Three Friends of Winter--ring the outside of the dish. The landscape's similarity to those in paintings made for the court indicates that court painters sometimes provided designs for Jingdezhen decorators.

Published References
  • Dr. John Alexander Pope. The History of Ming Porcelain: A Lecture on the Occasion of the 1st Presentation of the Hills Gold Medal, June 9th, 1971. Hills Gold Medal Lecture London. pl. 10b.
  • Oriental Ceramics: The World's Great Collections. 12 vols., Tokyo. vol. 10, pl. 95.
  • Dr. John Alexander Pope, Thomas Lawton, Harold P. Stern. The Freer Gallery of Art. 2 vols., Washington and Tokyo, 1971-1972. cat. 175, vol. 1: p. 175.
  • Thomas Dexel. Vollkommenheit aus dem Feuer : chinesisches Porzellan aus berühmten Sammlungen. vol. 106, no. 11 Braunschweig, Germany, November 1965. pp. 39-49, fig. 4.
  • Jan Stuart. Guiding Luminaries Charles Lang Freer and John A. Pope: the Freer Gallery of Art's Chinese Ceramic Collection. vol. 85 London. p. 124, fig. 17.
  • Thomas Lawton, Thomas W. Lentz. Beyond the Legacy: Anniversary Acquisitions for the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. vol. 1 Washington, 1998. p. 254, fig. 1.
Collection Area(s)
Chinese Art
Web Resources
Google Cultural Institute
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