Representative Image of an ornate Chinese porcelain dish with dragon designs and a yellow glaze found beneath a dusty sofa ( AI Generrated Image)
Chuxiu Palace was Cixi’s chief residence between 1856 and 1885, according to Sotheby’s catalogue notes for a related yellow-ground dragon charger. She had it refurbished for her 50th birthday in 1884, with large decorative objects among the furnishings. That dating places it in the late Qing dynasty, during the Guangxu period, which ran from 1875 to 1908.
Because it associates the object with a specific imperial palace rather than identifying it merely as Chinese porcelain, the seal is significant. Examining the dish revealed a seal mark on its underside that helped establish its significance.
Axford said the family’s reason for storing the dish beneath the sofa was not known. It translates as “made for Chuxiu Palace”, also known as the Palace of Gathering Elegance. Axford, the auction house’s Asian art specialist, decided that the object’s unusual size warranted an in-person inspection. He suggested that its size may have made it difficult to hang on a wall or display, although that explanation remains a possibility rather than an established account of the family’s decision. After it was cleaned, the porcelain emerged in what the auction house described as near-pristine condition. The central clue is the four-character mark, Chuxiugong zhi, on the underside. The palace was one of the six Western palaces in Beijing’s Forbidden City and was closely associated with Empress Dowager Cixi. Axford concluded that the Barnet dish was made in the 1880s to mark Cixi’s birthday. Its decoration provides further points of comparison with known palace wares.
A related dish offered by Woolley & Wallis in 2023, documented in lot 40 of its Fine Asian Art sale, measures 32cm across. Its recorded provenance includes Field Marshal Earl Kitchener and a 1938 Sotheby’s sale in London. Another comparison appears in Sotheby’s 2016 catalogue for a large yellow-ground dragon charger.
The auction house says the combination of its scale, its association with Cixi’s court and the potentially unique base makes it a significant example of late Qing palace porcelain to appear on the market in recent years. It features two scaly dragons contesting a flaming pearl amid clouds, with four dragons on the underside. That piece bears the same four-character mark and features two leaping dragons contesting a flaming pearl, with green and aubergine enamels against a yellow ground. Sotheby’s traces the design to a Kangxi-period prototype in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. These parallels help specialists place the Barnet dish within a recognisable tradition of imperial porcelain, although each object has its own features and history. The Barnet dish has several features that distinguish it from smaller examples. It measures about 61cm across and weighs approximately 30lb. Its decoration includes two confronting dragons contesting a flaming pearl, surrounded by clouds and flames. A floral border features lotus, prunus, peony, chrysanthemum and hibiscus, while further dragons and flaming pearls decorate the rim. The yellow ground, with green and aubergine enamel details, is characteristic of the group of imperial wares to which the dish has been linked. The base may be its most unusual feature. Woolley & Wallis has described the dish as the only known example of this type with a yellow-glazed base. The claim about the base is the auction house’s assessment of the known examples, rather than proof that no other example could exist.