A VERY IMPORTANT CHINESE BLUE & WHITE CHARGER, YUAN DYNASTY (1279-1368)sturdily potted with shallow rounded sides rising from a short foot to a wide everted bracket-lobed rim, the interior centred with a slightly sunken medallion boldly decorated in inky tones of cobalt blue with banana plant framed by a variety of fruiting and flowering branches, including curling leaves and globular melons borne on undulating stems, as well as large peony and lotus blooms, surrounded by a cavetto moulded in relief with blooming peony blossoms against a hatched ground, the barbed rim decorated with a band of crashing waves, the exterior bordered with a curling leafy lotus scroll, the unglazed base burnt in the firing.Provenance: Bought in the early 1970's in Khotan (East Turkestan) by Thomas Knorr,Then sold by the later owner of Gallery Kibitka in Lorrach Germany, Later in the 1990's was sold to the Adda Collection, now acquired to the current owner through descentDocumentation/ old receipts can be provided to the winning bidderDiameter: 41cmFootnotes:The blue-and-white chargers of the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) are among the most impressive and characteristic porcelains of that innovative period. Those with designs moulded in relief and reserved in white on a washed or hatched blue ground are among the rarest and most elaborate creations of the Jingdezhen kilns. Their sheer size alone is outstanding; it had never been achieved by Chinese potters before the Yuan dynasty and was only rarely even attempted again thereafter. Although dishes such as the present piece are decorated with motifs from the classic repertoire of the period, those of barbed form, with moulded decoration reserved in white on blue, were individually conceived, each varying from the next. Their onerous production process and generous use of the expensive imported cobalt pigment severely limited the number of examples that could be produced in total, so that the potters soon switched to the manufacture of a simpler version, of circular form, without moulding, and with designs in blue on a white ground, which were better suited to serial production.Moulded relief was practised at Jingdezhen already in the Song dynasty (960-1279), but only on monochrome white (qingbai) porcelains. The combination with underglaze cobalt-blue painting makes for an opulence otherwise rarely achieved in the ceramic medium. These porcelains were exported all over Asia and apparently managed even in India to overcome the prevailing prejudice against ceramics in general, which were believed to be unclean, which all ceramics not made in China indeed were. Surely the foremost attraction of Chinese porcelains all over Asia was their material superiority, with China having a monopoly on ceramics that were not only beautiful but also hard and dense and therefore remained clean and hygienicSee similar in the Shanghai Museum, as well as Topkapi Saray Museum