Description
Chinese Ming Dynasty Period, Wanli wucai dragon porcelain plate. The Porcelain potted in shallow vessel form, with the broad wide central interior, rounded cavetto gently tapering to open wide, raised with a round shallow draft. All reserved hand painted ornamentations are rendered in clean white under glazed base color which contrast against the wucai design color. WuCai or five-color shades and tones, brightly painted in WuCai design, Opaque colors around the exterior, between the filling motif decorated in colorful vivid sgrafitto ground of uptala. The center interior medallion and the outer rim adorned with flying phoenix and snarling huge imperial five claws dragons careening through cumulus clouds above thrashing Li-shui waves in a dark blue color dragon squama to chasing flaming pearl amidst flames and vapors. Since the dragon and the phoenix usually serve as auspicious symbols, any reported sightings of a dragon or phoenix were considered extremely auspicious, heralding a glorious period of peace and prosperity for the people and the country. This is reflected in the Chinese saying: "When the dragon soars and the phoenix dances, the people will enjoy happiness for years, bringing peace and tranquility to all under heaven. The foot rim reveals the cut edges during the making process, and the base left unglazed with grayish creme-brown ground and dark spots of firing marks. The underside unglazed, revealed the pale-creme ground revealed and dark grayish brown spotted firing marks and edge-cut foot rim. This inadvertently gave texture, energy, and shading to the design. The clay is very fine, with a brilliant glaze finish that was applied by a meticulous, the shape is uniformly proportioned.