Liao Dynasty (A.D. 916–1125)
with octafoil foliate rim, probably following a silver prototype, decorated in the center with a pinwheel arrangement of five amber-brown-glazed lobed and pointed leaves radiating from a green-glazed medallion, surrounded by three large blossoming lotus alternating with swimming fish also picked out in amber glaze within a green-glazed ‘pool’ of wavy lines indicating water, the shallow rounded sides moulded with detached lotus blooms and lily pads alternately glazed amber and green on a cream-white ground, all below a grooved border following the bracket-lobed outline of the rim, the lip with half-round moulded edge glazed in amber, the underside also covered with a thin amber glaze ending unevenly well short of the knife-pared ring foot, with some of the white slip undercoating emerging at the margins of the glaze, the unglazed pottery fired to orangey-brown.
Diameter 10 1⁄2 inches (26.7 cm)
This dish is a rare pattern and unusually large. Only one other Liao sancai-glazed dish of this size and form with the same decoration appears to be previously recorded, in a private collection in Singapore, illustrated by Lu Jing in Liaodai Taoci (Liao Pottery and Porcelain), Liaoning, 2003, p. 129.
Two other smaller foliated sancai-glazed dishes of this type, moulded with similar lotus designs, in the Palace Museum, Beijing and in the Liaoning Provincial Museum are illustrated in Zhongguo Taoci Quanji: Liao Xixia Jin (The Complete Works of Chinese Ceramics: Liao, Xixia and Jin Dynasties), Vol. 9, Shanghai, 2000, nos. 105 and 114, with descriptions on p. 275 and p. 278 respectively.
遼 三彩印花花口盤 徑 26.7 厘米
Liao Dynasty (A.D. 916–1125)
Diameter 10 1⁄2 inches (26.7 cm)