A BLUE AND WHITE ‘MUSICIANS’ DISH, KANGXI PERIOD China, 1662-1722. The shallow rounded sides rising from a short tapered foot to a wide everted rim, the broad floor filled with Daoist musicians and their attendants in the shade of a pine tree at a hillside, surrounded by a band of lotus flowers and Daoist emblems to the short cavetto, the gently sloping wide rim with additional Daoist figures framed within reserves against a geometric patterned ground.

Provenance: Belgian trade, by repute from a local private collection.
Condition: Fine condition with minor old wear and firing flaws, the rim with two hairlines, minuscule nicks to the foot.

Weight: 1,412 g
Dimensions: Diameter 39.5 cm

It is interesting to note that the Chinese musical tradition remained quite stable throughout the Qing dynasty before the New Culture Movement, as evidenced by the many similarities between the painting on the present dish and the musicians pictured in an old photograph taken in Shanghai during the 1860s (figure 1). The first major and well-documented flowering of Chinese music was for the qin during the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD), although this instrument is known to have been played already since before the Han period. Through succeeding dynasties over thousands of years, Chinese musicians developed a large assortment of different instruments and playing styles, including court, folk, and religious music as well as instrumental, opera, storytelling, and many other kinds. A wide variety of these instruments, such as guzheng and dizi, are indigenous, although many popular traditional musical instruments were introduced from Central Asia, such as the erhu and pipa. Musical instruments were traditionally classified into eight categories known as bayin. Traditional music in China is played on solo instruments or in small ensembles of plucked and bowed stringed instruments, flutes, and various cymbals, gongs, and drums. The scale is pentatonic. Bamboo pipes and qin are among the oldest known musical instruments from China.

康熙時期青花開光樂者場景大盤
中國，1662-1722年。折沿，斜圓腹，中央開光青花描繪文人園中松下奏樂賞玩場景；折沿上錦地開光描繪農家樂；斜腹上蓮紋。

來源：比利時古玩市場，據説來自當地私人收藏。
品相：狀況良好，有輕微的磨損和燒製瑕疵，邊緣有兩條細裂紋，足部有微小的刻痕。

重量：1,412 克
尺寸：直徑39.5厘米