plate BM-1923-0314.199

Period:Qing dynasty Production date:1725-1735 (circa)
Materials:porcelain
Technique:glazed, painted,
Subjects:boat/ship
Dimensions:Diameter: 22.60 centimetres

Description:
‘Famille rose’ plate painted in imitation of German porcelain. The plate is delicately painted with a central cartouche containing a European harbour view and shows European gentlemen talking on the quay where ships have been unloaded. This vignette is surrounded by rose-pink and iron-red scrollwork with iron-red butterflies above and a swan swimming in a river below. The design on the rim is particularly ornate and unusual, and contains four landscape panels, two ‘en grisaille’ and two in rose-pink, surrounded by butterflies and flowering plants against a speckled green ground.
IMG


Comments:Harrison-Hall and Krahl 1994:The central scene closely resembles decoration found on German porcelain made at Meissen. Save for some earlier experiments on a small scale, the Meissen manufactury was the first to make porcelain in Europe and Meissen porcelain was copied in China almost immediately.from the 1720s. Chinese porcelain, however, being available in much larger quantities, was – despite the transport – only a fraction of the cost of the German merchandise. Some of the Chinese imitation pieces are remarkably convincing, compare for example a Chinese cup and saucer decorated with European figures in Meissen style in the Yongzheng period (1723-1735), and a Meissen teapot with a similar overall design but with Chinese figures, made between 1723 and 1725, both in the British Museum (BM 1933.1117.1, BM Franks. 64). For further Chinese porcelains decorated in the style of Meissen, see BM Franks. 647, and Hervouet and Bruneau, 1986, pp. 342 -62.