A RARE DOCUMENTARY BLUE AND WHITE 'PHOENIX' SAUCER DISH Dated the 22nd year of Wanli's reign (AD 1594) and of the period The deep saucer dish painted to the interior in vibrant underglaze blue of a violet tone with two confronted phoenixes (fenghuang) in flight, one ascending, the other descending, either side of a sun disc centered by the character ri (sun), amidst two large peony flowerheads on dense scrolling tendrils that spread around the well, the exterior with three large Buddhistic lions divided by three ribboned balls, the base of the dish with an extremely rare seven-line sixty-six character documentary inscription. 11 3/4in (30cm) diam Footnotes: 27: 6844 萬曆二十二年 珍稀紀年青花鳳凰牡丹紋盤 款識： 石城縣坊郭里熊門陳氏，石中里白茅塘陳玉爵公之女也，配汝行公，生子三。長曰墀，儀賓；次曰兆禎，癛生；幼曰兆泰，令史。壽盤萬年不替耳。大明萬曆二十二年四月吉日，御器廠造。 Published: Cohen & Cohen, The Elephant in the Room, Antwerp, 2019, pp. 6-9, no. 2, with images of a building close to one of the gates in Shicheng City, now submerged under Lake Qiandao. 出版： 倫敦Cohen & Cohen古董行，《The Elephant in the Room》，安特衛普，2019年，頁6-9，圖錄編號2，附圖石城門邊一建築，現今已沒於千島湖。 The translation of the inscription indicates that dish was made for a lady of Shicheng. At least two places in eastern China could be this location, Shicheng County in Jiangxi Province and the City of Shicheng in Zhejiang Province, which is now under Qiandao Lake, created in 1959 for the Xin'an River Dam project. Shicheng mentioned in the inscription on the underside of the dish more likely refers to the county in Jiangxi, due to its proximity to Jingdezhen. There is a little precedent for a privately made, documentary dish like this. It is a remarkable survival. The inscription reads, 'For Mrs. Chen, of Xiong Gate in the city area, Shicheng county, the daughter of Mr. Chen Yujue of Baimao Pool, Shizhong district, who married Mr. Ruxing, and who has three sons, the eldest of whom, named Chi, married into the Imperial Household, the second of whom, named Zhaozhen, became a Daoist monk and the third of whom, named Zhaotai became an official, the manufactory of objects for the Imperial Court has made, on an auspicious day of the fourth month of the twenty-second year of the Wanli reign of the Great Ming, this longevity dish, to last for ten thousand years without decline.' The fenghuang is a Chinese mythological bird referred to in the West as a phoenix. It was the Empress of birds and in Chinese mythology they were honored by other birds. It signifies beauty, grace, virtue, and the unity of yin and yang and is an emblem of longevity. The lion playing with a brocade ball means 'May you and your descendant achieve high rank.' The ribbons were also signs of longevity. (Bartholomew 2006, 117, no. 5.17.2).