Two blue and white sweetmeat dishes, Ming dynasty, Tianqi period

Leaf: Japanese Private Collection.

Leaf: Ming Porcelain for the Japanese Market, Marchant, London, 2008, pp 42-3, cat. no. 19a-e (one of a set of five).

Sheep: Recent Acquisitions, Marchant, London, 2010, pp 20-1, cat. no. 11.

Compare a set of five identical leaf-shaped dishes, illustrated in Masahiko Kawahara, Ko-sometsuke, Colour Section, vol. 1, Kyoto, 1977, cat. no. 169. See also a similar set of five 'sheep' sweetmeat dishes, with their heads turned back, published in Seito Kikutaro and Fujio Koyama, Heibonsha Series, vol. 15, 1965, pl. 63; and another set of five preserved in the Tekisui Fine Arts Museum, Hyogo prefecture, illustrated in Masahiko Kawahara, Ko-sometsuke, Monochrome Section, vol. 2, Kyoto, 1977, cat. no. 725.