This dish is identically painted to its Ming original (see Ch18 for an example in the Duberly Collection), but is of inferior quality. It was common practice for Ming 15th and 16th century porcelain to be copied during the first half of the 18th century and to be marked with the appropriate Ming emperor’s characters. They vary considerably in quality, but the best examples can be hard to detect.

Major Duberly notes “Both Soame Jenyns and Winkworth say the blue is typical K’ang Hsi not  Yung Cheng”, though Sparks sold it as being of the latter period.

Literature: Anthony du Boulay, The Duberly Collection of Chinese Art at Winchester College (Winchester, 2019), p. 45; Anthony du Boulay, Chinese Porcelain (London, 1963), colour plate 42

Provenance: Bequeathed as part of the Duberly Collection, 1978; purchased by Major Montagu and Lady Eileen Duberly from John Sparks, 1 February 1950 (£25)

Location: Treasury, Gallery 2