Chinese Mao Zedong Disc

A glossy white profile rises from a petal-footed disc, signed with brushy characters.

This Mao Zedong disc is from Hebei Province, China, and dates to the 20th century. It is porcelain. During the Cultural Revolution, the article says, Mao's portrait or statue stood in virtually every home, and people bowed before it and recited quotations from the small Little Red Book. A large round plaque in glossy white with a raised rim and a deeply modeled head in profile at upper left. Brushed characters sit beneath the shoulders, and a lobed foot of carved flowers props the disc upright. It is 6 inches wide, 4 deep and 7 high.

All white, all poised, and unusually good at standing up.