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Hello ! Can anyone identify the mark and period on this plate (Chinese or Japanese)?Thank you

I believe this is a late 20th century or subsequent Chinese plate, although the mark of "Beautiful Vessel for the Jade Hall" (玉堂佳器 - Yu Tang Jia Qi) is listed in "The New and Revised Handbook of Marks on Chinese Ceramics" by Gerald Davison as associated with the Ming Wanli and Tianqi reign periods, and also appeared on early Qing Transitional and Kangxi period porcelains. "Jade Hall" is a euphemism for the Hanlin Academy, the imperial training grounds for scholars and bureaucrats for a thousand years before the end of the Qing Dynasty.

My doubts about the age of this plate are fueled by what appears to be an artificially darkened foot rim with an apparently perfectly glazed center. The underglaze blue mark also appears to be too uniformly dark in color to have been hand-written. Otherwise the motif and mark are similar to what is seen on a plate with decoration of Immortals celebrating the birthday of Shoulao, dating from the reign of the first Qing emperor Shunzhi (1644-1661). See link below (Due to recent troubles accessing this site via the forum link, please manually copy this URL into your browser).

http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot/a-blue-and-white-immortals-dish-shunzhi-5199160-details.aspx?

Best regards,

Bill H.

Thank you very much.What is this about worth.

Its worth depends on whether anyone agrees with me as to the modernity of the piece. In that regard, I further note that the last of the figures on the right side of your dish seems to melt into the border. This is not the case in the Christies dish, which shows each figure completely, in the balanced symmetry more typical of traditional Chinese design. Makes me think that your dish may be decorated with a high quality computer-printed stencil copied from a dish of slightly different shape or decorative perspective, which forced such an accommodation at the fringes.

If nobody else comments here, you can always submit a request and photos to Sotheby's, Christie's or many other large auctioneers for an auction potential appraisal. They don't usually give you an exact value, but a finding of acceptable for auction would usually mean that the item meets their criterion for minimum estimate, which was about $5000.00 for Sotheby's and Christie's last I heard.

Best regards,

Bill H.

I hesitate to stick my oar in the water of a pond where I don't paddle (how's that for an obtuse metaphor?)...

Bill H - You didn't mention the red, off-center ring on the surface of the plate indicating these were stacked when fired. Does that have any signifiance or effect value? Just curious.

Cheers,
Stan

Hi Bill H. and Beli,

I think this link (comment below the pictures) gives the answer.

Regards,

Arjan

URL Title :Link

Arjan, thanks much for the sleuthing. If I'm reading the bottom line correctly on the evaluation of that identical dish, it is deemed to be modern and unworthy of an antique collection.

Stan, thanks for the observation, but I took the stain to be just more gunk like what appears to be on the foot.

Best regards to everyone,

Bill H.

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