The elegant design of this dish represents one of the great classic patterns of the Yongle period that demonstrate the achievement of Jingdezhen’s potters and painters in the early Ming dynasty. Under the Yongle Emperor not only did the quality of porcelain and stylistic sophistication reach unprecedented heights, its value to the court also evolved from that of an exquisite practical item of the imperial household to becoming a commodity with economic and diplomatic potential to the Emperor.

The Yongle Emperor was an outward-looking monarch, and his reign was marked by numerous official expeditions abroad. Large dishes painted in underglaze blue were made at the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, where production was carefully monitored. Porcelains here were produced for the court, its specifications defined and quality monitored by the court, and its distribution organised by the court and assured through official channel. While quality control was stringent in this period, so as to make porcelains impeccable, designs were jealously guarded, so no copies could be made by lesser kilns that might be confused with the original and in this way harm the repute and prestige of the product.

Dishes painted with this motif, always featuring three clusters of grapes issuing from a single stem, vary in few but distinct ways: the sides are either rounded or lobed and the rims are straight or barbed. Among surviving examples, the present piece is particularly outstanding for its fine potting, smooth, tactile glaze and lush fruit pattern that beautifully displays the characteristic ‘heaping and piling’ of the cobalt blue – a much-copied trademark of imperial blue and white porcelains from the early Ming dynasty.

Dishes of this design made for the court include one from the Qing court collects ion and still in Beijing, illustrated in Geng Baochang ed., Gugong Bowuyuan cang. Ming chu qinghua ci [Early Ming blue and white porcelain in the Palace Museum], Beijing, 2002, vol. II, pl. 133, together with a slightly smaller circular dish of this design, pl. 135.

After an interruption in the Hongwu reign, the Yongle Emperor re-established relations with the Timurid ruler Shahrukh Mirza (r. 1405-1447), which led to frequent mutual exchanges of luxury goods between the two empires, including blue and white porcelains. A dish of this design formerly in the Ardebil Shrine and now in the National Museum of Iran, Tehran, is illustrated in John Alexander Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, Washington D.C., 1956, pl. 38. A similar dish is also found in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, London, 1986, vol. II, pl. 605; a further example is in the Musée Guimet, Paris (accession no. MA1645), illustrated in Daisy Lion-Goldschmidt, Ming Porcelain, Fribourg, 1978, pl. 25; another one from the collects ion of Walter Sedgwick is now in the British Museum, London (accession no. 1968,0422.27), included in Jessica Harrison-Hall, Catalogue of Late Yuan and Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, pl. 3:36; and another barbed charger included in the exhibition Tianminlou qinghua ci tezhan [Special exhibition of blue and white porcelain from the Tianminlou collects ion], Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, 1996, cat. no. 24.

The grape motif is comparatively rare on Chinese works of art as the fruit was mainly grown in Central Asia. It was first introduced in the Tang dynasty when the Silk Road enabled a close contact with this region, and re-appeared in the Yuan dynasty, when China again had many economic and cultural ties with the West, before becoming increasingly popular during the Yongle reign.

青花葡萄紋，屬永樂瓷最經典之紋飾，並見證景德鎮青花燒造之一日千里。永樂一朝，不僅製瓷技術與風格大幅躍升，御製官瓷亦不再僅為內廷所用，也成為君主用於促進貿易或外交之利器。

永樂帝力求擴張疆域，曾多次遣使疆外。御窰燒製青花瓷，得朝廷嚴密監督，以求成品至臻，無民窰得以接近其水平，確保官窰瓷器至高無上之地位。

永樂青花葡萄紋折沿盤，盤心繪藤生三串葡萄，豐美欲滴，盤壁或直或作瓜稜式，盤沿順圓或花口。此件拍品瓷胎端正，釉色潤澤，青花紋飾雅致，黑疵斑駁，彰顯明初瓷器典麗，尤為難得。

清宮舊藏一件同式菱口折沿盤，現藏北京故宮博物院，刊於耿寶昌編，《故宮博物館藏明初青花瓷》，北京，2002年，下冊，圖版133，同錄一件尺寸較小之葡萄紋圓形折沿盤，圖版135。

永樂帝登基後，重拾洪武時期一度中斷與帖木兒帝國沙哈魯皇朝之頻繁交流，其中青花瓷常作為珍貴賞賜。類同紋飾瓷盤，曾供奉於阿德比爾聖殿，現藏德黑蘭伊朗國家博物館，刊於 John Alexander Pope，《Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine》，華盛頓，1956年，圖版38，編號29.58。伊斯坦堡托普卡比宮殿博物館也有藏，載於康蕊君，《Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul》，倫敦，1986年，卷2，圖版605。巴黎吉美國立亞洲藝術博物館藏品（編號： MA1645），則可參見 Daisy Lion-Goldschmidt，《Ming Porcelain》，弗里堡，1978年，圖版25。另可參考倫敦大英博物館 Walter Sedgwick 舊藏例（編號1968,0422.27），收入霍吉淑，《Catalogue of Late Yuan and Ming Ceramics in the British Museum》，倫敦，2001年，圖版3:36。香港天民樓亦有藏，見《天民樓珍藏青花瓷器》，上海，1996年，編號24。

葡萄紋樣，因其果主要生長於中亞地區，遂較為罕見於中國藝術品。唐代因絲綢之路通達，中西往來頻繁，中原遂見有葡萄紋飾，卻如曇花一現。元時，中國與西域貿易、文化交互，紐帶再連，時至明永樂，葡萄圖案甚是流行。