明天啓或崇禎早期 五彩羅漢海棠形盤

The rounded sides rising from a short foot to an everted rim, the interior painted with a luohan to the centre seated on an oval mat, surrounded by a ‘cracked ice’ pattern in green, yellow, aubergine and iron-red, seal mark to the base
Length: 17cm
Provenance: Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 26 May 2014, lot 613; Mujintang Collection.
Exhibited: Transitional Wares and Their Forerunners, Oriental Ceramics Society of Hong Kong, 1981.
Literature: Kilburn, Richard, Transitional Wares and Their Forerunners, Oriental Ceramics Society of Hong Kong, 1981, p. 177, pl. 151.
For a similar design on a diamond-shaped dish, please see S Marchant and S
on, Transitional Wares for the Japanese and Domestic Markets, London, June 1989, p. 48, pl. 82. In this, Marchant raise the question as to whether the design surrounding the figure could be a stone floor, rather than ‘cracked ice’, which potentially gives the viewer a more three-dimensional interpretation of the scene.
Sold on behalf of an Asian private collector to an English private collector in January 2022 for £2,320.

