A small iron-red and underglaze-blue 'nine dragon' dish


Wanli six-character mark and of the periodThe shallow, wide vessel raised on a very low foot rim, the exterior enamelled with eight five-clawed dragons writhing above a wave border at the very low foot rim, the interior with another dragon atop a slightly convex well. 12.5cm (4 7/8in) diam.
|Provenance: collected in the 1970s, by reputeCompare with a similar pair of dragon bowls, Wanli six-character marks and of the period, sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 3 October 2017, lot 3733. Also, see a similar pair exhibited in Chugoku meito ten: Chugoku toji 2000-nen no seika [Exhibition of Chinese pottery: two thousand years of Chinese ceramics], Tokyo, 1992, cat. no. 95.