Dish with Broad Flat Rim

In the center of this dish with rich cobalt-blue decoration, three ladies enter the terrace of a house surrounded by a garden with a banana tree, a plum tree, and two bamboo shoots. On the rim, four vignettes separated by elaborate geometric patterns represent scholars engaged in various activities. The six-character mark of the Kangxi reign (1662–1722) is painted on the base. In the early eighteenth century, a set of thirty dishes similarly decorated, but smaller in size, reached Dresden as part of the vast and prestigious collection of porcelain assembled by August II (1670–1733), Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, better known as Augustus the Strong.

Source: Vignon, Charlotte. The Frick Collection Decorative Arts Handbook. New York: The Frick Collection/Scala, 2015.