9" diameter and 3.9" high. Very good condition with no chips hairlines or repairs. Light wear to gold on rim. This size is for a serving bowl at the Empress' meals. In the novels, it is also known as the "ocean size" for those who prefer to imbibe by the liter. Her warrior ancesters 300 years earlier may have prefered the latter use.

This is a large colorful bowl with nice design and an interesting place in the last days of imperial China. I have 2 of these separately listed with slight variation on the title.

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NOTE: --->Da Ya Zhai was the studio name used by Empress Tsu H'su (Cixi) to seal her paintings. For her big 60th birthday (1894), she commissioned a set of porcelain, all conforming to the seasonal themes prescribed by her as were the seals and marks. The horizontal 3 characters says "Da Ya Zhai". The oval seal next to it, "tian di yi jia chun" (under heaven and earth is one family-homily of spring). The red mark on the base signifies fortune forever and long series of spring (yong t'sing chang chun). Even though she ruled China from behind the screen, she did not dare use her honorific on imperial porcelain. This was as close as she got.

The Da Ya Zhai porcelain theme was used continuously with variations following its introduction, beginning in the Guangxu period. It is generally thought that only about 100 pieces of the original remain today. (There is a good discussion of this subject in Avitabile's "From the Dragon's Treasure").

This one was from 1920s or earlier. It is not original because the size is just a tad bigger than the corresponding bowl of the original set, and the square enclosure of the bottom mark. HOWEVER, the 4 characters are recognizable by the hand of one of the original mark writers. And the level of detail in the floral designs were not achieved after 1930. Porcelain enamel for high temperature firing has the flow characteristics of molasses in winter. Lots of time and patience on two levels were required for painting skill and execution. Such time was simply not available for different reasons following the 30's.

On this bowl using one example, we see the petal color transitioning from almost white to deep pink, with the veins picked out sharply and colored in dark grisaille. Also we see the pink edge of a petal precisely laying over the inner white of the adjacent petal. Comparatively speaking, later productions would be kind of a blob on another blob.