J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York

A longquan dish of this size and pattern from the Collection of Edward T. Chow is illustrated by Beurdeley in A Connoisseur’s Guide to Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1974, p. 159, col. pl. 47.

Compare also the two dishes of slightly smaller size from the Art Institute of Chicago included in the 1968 Yuan exhibition at the Cleveland Museum, illustrated by Lee and Ho in Chinese Art Under the Mongols: The Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368), Cleveland, 1968, no. 68a, moulded with a deer supporting a magic vase and 68b, moulded with a xiniu gazing at a crescent moon.

Another example, also of smaller size, moulded with a xiniu in the center, in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, is illustrated by He Li in Chinese Ceramics: The New Standard Guide, London, 1996, p. 246, no. 509. The same dish from the Brundage Collection is illustrated by Medley in Yuan Porcelain and Stoneware, London, 1974, pl. 68B, and discussed on pp. 74–75 where the author suggests that these rare dishes should be dated slightly after the middle of the fourteenth century.

The qilin, sometimes called the Chinese unicorn, is a fabulous creature variously represented as a composite beast with a single horn or antlers, the head of a lion, the body of a deer, the scales of a dragon, a bushy tail and flames rising from its flanks. It is a beast of good omen, said to appear at auspicious times and regarded as a symbol or harbinger of longevity, grandeur, felicity, wise administration and illustrious offspring.