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Is this a 19th c. Saucer Dish or earlier?

Underglaze blue four-character Kangxi marks like this one generally are accepted by advanced collectors and other Chinese porcelain specialists as being 19th century products. Also, when depicting dragons, most 19th century porcelain painters seemed to use an economical crosshatch and dot method to suggest scales instead of painting each lancet form individually, as was done with Kangxi-period dragons.

Best regards,

Bill H.

Thanks for the feedback Bill, I appreciate it very much. You refer to "four character marks like this", what characteristics do four character marks of the period have? Are there any generally accepted by advanced collectors and experts or are they all considered later marks?

Thanks Bill, I see the scales differently now. Do you know of any four character marks of the period? If so what are the characteristics? Randy

Tony Allen's latest book, "Allen's Antique Chinese Porcelain - The Detection of Fakes", states on page 77 that "Kangxi (1662-1722) reign marks of the period are in kaishu script in underglaze blue, almost never in either zhuanshu seal script, iron red marks or of four characters."

Tony's "almost never" recognizes the presence of an exception for virtually every rule when it comes to Chinese porcelain. One of my catalogs from the Taipei National Palace Museum shows two examples of imperial porcelain with four-character red marks of "Kangxi Yu Zhi" (康熙御製), "Made by Imperial Order, Kangxi Reign".

The Shanghai-published "General Dictionary of Markings on Chinese Historical Porcelains" (中国历代陶瓷款识大典 - Zhongguo lidai taoci kuanzhi dadian), shows several of this type of imperial kiln mark in both red and blue, some of the red ones from the same Taipei catalog cited above. Under the heading of "popular" (minyao) kiln marks, it also shows seven examples of what is indicated to be period marks of "Kangxi Nian Zhi" (康熙年製), "Made during the Kangxi Reign", some found on shards. This book is in Chinese, and since I've never tried to translate the whole thing, I have no appreciation of what kind of scholarship is behind these findings. However, for those of us who are not archaeologists at Jingdezhen, I would caution that the chance of ever owning a period piece of porcelain with the "Kangxi Nian Zhi" mark probably ranks right up there with the odds of finding the Holy Grail while planting a window-box garden to brighten your 20th floor flat.

Best regards,

Bill H.

Thanks for the clarification Bill

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