Sold Ceramics - Sold Chine de commande - Western Subjects 1680-1800 - Various Subjects - Outdoor Scenes - Page 1

Object 2012574

Dish

China

c.1735

Height 30 mm (1.18 inch), diameter of rim 222 mm (8.74 inch), diameter of footring 120 mm (4.72 inch), weight 443 grams (15.63 ounce (oz.))

Dish on footring with shaped rim. Polychrome decorated in rich famille rose enamels with a Western figure seated on pierced taihu (ornamental garden) rockwork encircled by a border of rich rose-pink scroll-and-shell pattern. On the sides a gilt spearhead border and on the rim a border of six panels, each with a Western figure dancing or playing an instrument and flanked by flower sprays. The reverse is undecorated.

There is a series of such plates with different musicians, but the meaning is obscure, and because there is little realism it seems probable the Chinese painters were copying a series of sketches, which may have originated in the East rather than from any Western source. Such porcelain may well have been as popular within China as it was for export. (Howard & Ayers 1978, vol. II, p.359)

Picturesque subjects

This wide classification of themes - most of them concerned with the subjects of love, beauty and happiness - derive from the great variety of prints and pictures with subjects based on artistic engravings or variations (usually erotic) of these which flowed to China from 1740 onwards. If they had any common factor it must have been the popularity which, it was hoped, would attend their advent in the form of porcelain in the markets of Europe.

Unlike the mythological and literary subjects, the earliest probably preceded Pronk, or were at least unaffected by his efforts, and the more standardized products which emerged after 1740. Such early examples appear to be, in the main, of a style designed by the Chinese themselves with musicians and bird sellers showing only rudimentary signs of European draughtsmanship. (Howard & Ayers 1978, vol. II, p.359)

For an identically shaped, sized and similarly decorated dish, please see:

Hervouët and Bruneau also show other designs of a young European man playing an instrument and although not belonging to the same series they nevertheless have an obvious family resemblance. (Hervouët 1986, p.184)

For examples of these other objects, please see:

Mudge illustrates a Chinese shaving basin polychrome decorated with a young European man playing a oboe while standing in a garden landscape with various flowering plants.

Chinese export porcelain in North America, (J. McClure Mudge, Riverside Book Company, Inc., New York, 2000), p.59, cat. 74.

Condition: Professionally restored after being broken in two and two restored chips and a frit to the rim.

References:

Howard & Ayers 1978, vol. II, cat. 348

Hervouët 1986, cat. 8.3, 8.10 & 8.14

Mudge 2000, cat. 74

Price: Sold.