Blue and white porcelain dish

China, mark and period of Wanli, 1573 – 1619

Diameter: 7 inches, 17.8 cm

Scenes of playful children in various settings were popular during the Ming dynasty, first appearing on blue and white porcelain during the Jiajing period (1522 – 1566) and featuring frequently throughout the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, as can be seen on various Ming porcelains in the British Museum (1). The subject was not only a popular one for the decoration of ceramics, but is also found in earlier periods on other media, such as Yuan period carved lacquer (2). A pair of blue and white dishes with the same pattern as the present dish is in the Museum of East Asian Art, Bath, England (3).

1 See: Ming Ceramics in the British Museum by Jessica Harrison-Hall (London 2001) nos. 9:50, 10:5 and 12:10
2 See: East Asian Lacquer, the Florence and Herbert Irving Collection, by James C.Y. Watt and Barbara Brennan Ford (New York 1991) no. 23, pp. 76-8
3 See: The Museum of East Asian Art Inaugural Exhibition, Vol. I, by Brian S. McElney (Bath, England 1993) plate 157, p. 204. The same pair was exhibited in the Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong’s exhibition of blue and white porcelain in 1975.