Chinese Export Porcelain Rose Mandarin Saucer Dish Canton, Circa 1810, Jiaqing Period

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Description

Chinese Export Porcelain Rose Mandarin Saucer Dish
Canton, Circa 1810, Jiaqing Period

This Chinese Export porcelain saucer dish is a … Read more Chinese Export Porcelain Rose Mandarin Saucer Dish
Canton, Circa 1810, Jiaqing Period

This Chinese Export porcelain saucer dish is a fine example of the Rose Mandarin palette, its center painted with a serene narrative scene: a gathering of elegantly robed ladies in conversation in a garden before a richly appointed pavilion, one seated in a latticed chair, the group shaded by a tall tree rendered in brilliant blue and turquoise enamels, with rockwork and water in the foreground. The border carries the full Rose Mandarin vocabulary on the white ground — large pink peonies, fruit, exotic birds, and finely dotted butterflies among flowering branches — between gilt lines at the rim and the well. The meticulous enameling and gilt detailing mark the dish as a quality production for the Western market at the height of the China Trade.

Hung on a wall, singly or grouped with other Canton famille rose plates, or set on a stand in a bookcase or cabinet, the dish brings concentrated color to a traditional or chinoiserie interior. It sits equally well flat on a console or side table.

Dimensions
Diameter: 8¼ inches (21.0 cm)
Height: 1¾ inches (4.4 cm)

Provenance
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge

References
Arlene M. Palmer, A Winterthur Guide to Chinese Export Porcelain (New York: Crown Publishers, 1976), for the Rose Mandarin group.
John Quentin Feller, Chinese Export Porcelain in the 19th Century: The Canton Famille Rose Porcelains (Salem, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum of Salem, 1982), for the Canton famille rose wares generally.

Historical Context
Rose Mandarin wares, produced from the late eighteenth century into the mid-nineteenth, are defined by their figural scenes of Chinese domestic and courtly life — romanticized visions composed expressly for the Western appetite for the exotic — and precede the pattern-driven Rose Medallion and Rose Canton wares that followed from the middle of the nineteenth century. The porcelain was potted and glaze-fired at Jingdezhen, then enameled and gilded by teams of specialist painters in the workshops of Canton before shipment to Europe and America, where such wares furnished fashionable households throughout the golden age of the China Trade.

(Ref: NY8318/CKM) See less