Object Number: Finch 193

Collection: Eastern Art

Object Name: Dish

Description: Dish of porcelain with a gilded folate rim of five barbed lobes. Decorated in red and gilt enamels on underglaze blue is the design of two small birds in blue and gold flying toward a broken stem of bamboo with a branch of red, gold and blue bamboo leaves. On the underside is a continuous scroll design in blue. In a large circle within the footring is a six-character mark in two lines that reads: ?????? (Chinese: Tai Ming Chenghua Nian Zhi, Japanese: Daimin seika nensei) 'Greatest [sic] Ming Chenghua make'. This is a common mark on Arita porcelain, where the extra dot in the first character changes the meaning from 'da' (great) to 'dai' (greatest). A note left by the collector, Irene Finch (1918-2019), reads: 'Late 18thC export via Dutch to Indonesia.'