Large blue and white dish. Probably Chu Dau kilns, Red River Delta, northern Vietnam, 1440-1460

Large blue and white dish showing two swimming carp among waterweeds decorated in underglaze blue patterning. Probably Chu Dau kilns, Red River Delta, northern Vietnam, 1440-1460, stoneware. Diameter: 38.6 centimetres. Height: 8.2 centimetres. Weight: 2.45 kilograms. Brooke Sewell Permanent Fund. Purchased from Eric Nissen. Ex-collection Ella Bodor. 2009,3014.6. British Museum © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Purchased from the Nissen Collection This large dish showing two swimming carp in underglaze blue was once in the F.W. Bodor collection and was found and purchased by Frederick Bodor on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi in the early 1960s. F. W. Bodor was a well known Sydney collector, mainly of trade ceramics. He had a number of pieces in the Exhibition "Oriental Trade Ceramics in Southeast Asia, 10-16th century", John Guy, presented by the National Gallery of Victoria, 1980. It was exhibited on loan to the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne and to Museums elsewhere in Australia in 1980. It has been on loan at the British Museum since 1999 and was exhibited at the British Museum as part of a display of Vietnamese Ceramics in 2001.

Bibliography: Guy, John; Stephenson, John, Vietnamese Ceramics: A separate tradition, Chicago, 1997, p. 303 no. 237

Exhibition: 2009 Dec - 2011 Feb, BM, North Entrance case, Blue and White Porcelain Display
2012 18 Apr – 17 Jul, Abu Dhabi, Manarat Al Saadiyat, ‘Treasures of the World’s Cultures’
2012 Nov 30 - 2013 Apr 4, Bonn, Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle, ‘Treasures of The World's Cultures’