Yuan Dynasty Large Chinese Blue and White Porcelain Dish, studily potted with the rounded sides rising from a tapered foot to a wide everted rim, painted in rich tones of cobalt-blue, the interior with a slightly recessed medallion enclosing a pair of fish swimming amongst waterweeds and other aquatic plants in a pond, encircled at the cavetto by an undulating lotus scroll, the rim with a trellis border, similarly decorated to the exterior with a leafy lotus scroll. Outer bowl exterior includes painted auspicious cloud detailing. Diameter 16" Height 3” Footnote: The motif of fish swimming amongst waterweeds is a classic example of Yuan design and the present belongs to this group. See also a smaller dish with a wavy rim, also depicting fish amongst weeds, included in Ye Peilan, Yuandai ciqi, Beijing, 1998, pl. 117. A circular dish depicting a related fish is published in Blue and White Ceramics of the World, vol. 1, Kyoto, 1981, pl. 37. A number of dishes of similar fish design are preserved although they vary considerably in their execution; a similar example in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, is illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, vol. II, London, 1986, pl. 568; one in the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, is published in Chugoku no toji. Gen Min no seika, vol. 8, Tokyo, 1995, pl. 15; another with the character chun (spring) incised on the fish before glazing, formerly in the Ardabil Shrine and now in the National Museum of Iran, Tehran, is included in John Alexander Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, Washington D.C., 1956, pl. 9; and a fourth example from the Meiyintang collection, illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 2, London, 1994, pl. 635, was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 4th April 2012, lot 17, as catalog note from a recent Sotheby’s Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art auction piece.