Sold Ceramics - Sold Chine de commande - Western Subjects 1680-1800 - Western Designers -

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Bonnart, Nicolas (1646-1717)

Object 2011677

Dish

China

1700-1710

Height 22 mm (0.87 inch), diameter of rim 157 mm (6.18 inch), diameter of footring 82 mm (3.23 inch), weight 124 grams (4.37 ounce (oz.))

Dish on footring, flat rim. Decorated in underglaze blue with a group of Europeans in fashionable dress on a tiled terrace by a pavilion. The ladies' hair is dressed à la mode Fontanges, and the man wears a long wig. On the rim a border with rocks, flower sprays and birds in flight. On the reverse three wide peony sprays. Marked on the base with the symbol mark, Artemisia leaf, in a double circle, underglaze blue.

PT DS Howard p.41 cat 7

(Reproduced from, The Choice of the Private Trader. The Private Market in Chinese Export Porcelain illustrated from the Hodroff Collection, (D.S. Howard, Zwemmer, London, 1994), p.41, cat. 7. (copyright in bibliographic data and images is held by the publisher or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved) This dish is not included in this sale/offer.)

Above a dish with a design derived from French 'costume' prints of the end of the seventeenth century. This 'Music Party' design was copied from a print engraved by the Parisian Nicolas Bonnart (1646-1718), and drawn by his brother Robert Bonnart, which is shown in the accompanying illustration.

China for the West, Howard and Ayers p 77 cat 35

A print engraved by the Parisian Nicolas Bonnart (1646-1718), and drawn by his brother Robert Bonnart,

(Reproduced from, China for the West. Chinese Porcelain and other Decorative Arts for Export illustrated from the Mottahedeh Collection, (D.S. Howard & J. Ayers, Philip Wilson Publishers for Sotheby Parke Bernet Publications, London 1978), vol. 1, p.77, cat. 35. (copyright in bibliographic data and images is held by the publisher or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved) This engraving is not included in this sale/offer.)

Nicolas Bonnart and his brothers Robert, Henri and Jean were all engaged in the production and sale of engravings from c.1675 at addresses in the rue St Jacques, which remained a centre of this activity down to the nineteenth century. Of no outstanding distinction as artists, they nevertheless acquired fame both through their fashion prints, which reflect with unusual accuracy the changing modes of the day, and from their introduction as models for these of leading figures of the court.

It would be of interest to know trough what channels this unusual group of porcelains came to be ordered. Both the faithfulness of the copying and the hatched style of the drawing confirm the prints as their direct source. However, they as well have been made for clients in Holland where such prints appeared in pirated editions, e.g.by I. Gole of Amsterdam. (Howard & Ayers 1978, vol. 1, pp.77-78)

PT DS Howard p.41 cat 7 a

Reproduced from, The Choice of the Private Trader. The Private Market in Chinese Export Porcelain illustrated from the Hodroff Collection, (D.S. Howard, Zwemmer, London, 1994), p.41, cat. 7. (copyright in bibliographic data and images is held by the publisher or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved) This dish is not included in this sale/offer.

Above a rather deep dish with a flat rim, painted with a group of Europeans in fashionable dress on a tiled terrace by a pavilion with a classical cornice. The lady seated to the right holds a flower to her face. The girl hands her another from a basket held by a servant, while a man in the background also holds up a flower spray. The ladies' hair is dressed à la mode Fontanges, and the man wears a long wig. Round the sides in eight arcaded panels is repeated a design of two women standing on either side of a plant; one holding a flower spray and the other a fan. After an unidentified print possibly illustrating the sense of smell, from a set of 'The Senses': judging from its resemblance in the style of this dish: this to seem to be the work of the brothers Bonnart. A simplified version of the central design is found also on some smaller plates, 6 1/4 inch in diameter which have a rim border of flower sprays and birds. (Howard & Ayers 1978, vol. 1, pp.77-78)

Although the figures on this dish are dressed in Western style, the subject matter of painting should be Chinese as people are holding plants. It was a kind of traditional entertainment activity in ancient China, which was called doucao (playing with plants) or dou baicao (playing with hundred plants) and quite popular among girls and kids. Sometimes men also took part in the game. This game came into being in the Six dynasties. On the day of Dragon Boat Festival, people competed in the number of plants they picked or in the number of plant species they knew. By the Tang dynasty, the content of the doucao competition changed and included two aspects: fist, people competed in the tenacity of plant stems; and secondly, they competed in the number of plants they picked. This activity continued till the Qing dynasty. It was also recorded in the famous novel The Story of the Sone by Cao Xueqin. Here a scene about the second way of the doucao game is depicted on the dish, but it is very rare that people dressed in Western style were painted to show the traditional Chinese folk game - doucao. (Shanghai 2009, p.136)

For identically shaped, sized and decorated, simplified version dishes, please see:

Condition: Two fleabites, two frits, a chip and a hairline to the reverse rim.

References:

Beurdeley 1962, Fig. 12

Howard & Ayers 1978, vol. 1, cat. 35 & 36

Boulay 1984, p.200, cat. 2

Hervouët 1986, cat. 4.76 & 4.77

London 1990, lot 169 (one of a pair)

Howard 1994, cat. 7

Shanghai 2009, pp.136-139, cat 57 & 58

Price: Sold.