A bronze foliate dish, Song dynasty

Phillips London, circa 1985.

The dish is a rare surviving example of a petal-shaped dish more commonly found in porcelain and lacquer. For a larger bronze dish of flower shape, convincingly attributed to the 14th or 15th century, see Gerard Hawthorn, Oriental Works of Art, London, June 1997, cat. no. 5; and the pair to the present, sold from the Hausmann Collection in our Hong Kong rooms, 8th October 2014, lot 3347. Both the Hausmann and the Hawthorn examples are thinly cast, giving them an elegance and refinement similar to that of the finest Ding porcelain.