INV062 A v.rare doucai plate of 5-clawed dragons Chenghua mark 15th Century

Description

Dimension: 21.6cm Diameter, 5.9cm Height
Provenance: Acquired from a former collector with 40-years collection in Lingga, Riau.
Description
A finely potted doucai enamel in colors of yellow, red, green, purplish brown and underglaze blue plate of a single 5-clawed front-facing dragon with reddish orange body rising from the sea with two prancing green and yellow 5-clawed dragons among clouds at the external cavetto supported with a rather thick tapered foot rising to a flared mouth rim, which is glazed overall with silky lustrous glaze with a tinge of greenish hue or ‘duck’s egg’ color except for the foot rim which shows an off-white color and a six character mark ‘da ming cheng hua nian chi’ within a double circle in underglaze cobalt blue.
The body of the plate is slightly translucent as it seems to be a heavier set among the doucai plates of similar size. The rarity of this brilliant doucai color is the reddish orange tone exhibited on the single front-facing dragon with its legs spread out leaping out of the raging sea on the center well of this plate, the other enamel color tones span from bright red, deep brown, purplish brown, sea green, light green, royal yellow and pale yellow. The pale underglaze blue which usually forms the outline of the drawing as well as the double circles on the central well, the inner mouth rim, above the foot and the mark lacks the heap-and-pile except for the six characters which hinted a stronger cobalt color.
The potting of such plates for Chenghua period 15
th
century is usually observed with a slightly raised at the foot base with a center slight knob and a slightly sunken center well. Another characteristic of Chenghua period is the wonderful silky extremely smooth high quality transparent glaze which is only achievable by a very pure pasted with very little impurities as seen in the exposed foot rim.