saucer BM-Franks.654.h

Period:Qing dynasty Production date:1740-1755 (circa)
Materials:porcelain
Technique:glazed, painted,
Subjects:clown landscape
Dimensions:Diameter: 12 centimetres (saucers) Diameter: 13 centimetres (teapot stand) Height: 6.50 centimetres (coffee cup) Height: 4 centimetres (tea cup) Height: 13.50 centimetres (teapot)

Description:
Saucer, one of ten pieces of a Chinese porcelain service, painted in England. This group consists of a teapoy, teapot stand, three coffee cups, two tea cups and three saucers. The painted scenes, which are different on each piece, derive from theatrical characters of the Italian ‘commedia dell’arte’. They include Harlequin, in the multi-coloured chequered costume and mask, generally holding a club; Columbine in a long pink dress; and her lover. In one scene Harlequin’s arm reaches out from a coffin. All the porcelains have toothed golden rim borders.
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Comments:Harrison-Hall and Krahl 1994:This porcelain set was made at Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, and the decoration was added to the plain white pieces in England, in the workshop of James Giles, possibly at Kentish Town, London, where his business was located from 1756. The work may have been executed by the miniature painter, illustrator and porcelain decorator Jeffrey Hamet O’Neale (1734-1801), whose painting is said to be characterized by “slender tufted trees and the spiky, ‘starfish’ hands of the figures, and a group of red-brown rocks in the foreground”. (Honey, 1977 [1932], pp. 109-10). A matching teapot is in the Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh (no. 450.47). These designs appear on Chinese porcelain only (private communication of Dr. Bernard Watney). These characters of the ‘commedia dell’arte’ were depicted in numerous popular prints (Allardyce, 1963).