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Thanks Bill for trying to identify the charger from the pathetically small photos. I hope these much larger ones will help in identifyinig if this is Japanese or Chinese and approx date or period.

I have uploaded the larger front view here and also the back view in the earlier post of a few days ago.


Many thanks for all your help, Barry

Looks canton...But those overglaze enamels look mighty fresh to me!!!

I can't tell if the rim on your charger has gilding, a light iron brown "dressing", or is left in the unglazed biscuit. I have a large (ca. 50 cm) mid-18th century blue and white Chinese export charger with a similar number and pattern of spur support marks on the back and a light iron brown glaze or "dressing" on the rim. The borders on your charger and mine are not identical but stylistically quite similar, of course yours being in enamel colors and mine only blue underglaze. Your charger, with its opaque famille rose enamels (with mixing of the tin-white and colloidal gold enamels), looks pretty much ok for Chinese export, mid to late 18th century to me. The only concern I have is with the color of the footrim, which appears maybe a little too white in the photo when I would expect it to be more of a straw yellow in color. Of course that could be due to very low iron content of the biscuit.

Excellent quality! In the decoration there is nothing that looks Japanese. The rim decoration underneath would normally be Kangxi. Whether it is 18th century or a superb copy of the 19th century could be decided perhaps by the shape of the foot rim (but it is difficult with a picture from straight above). A shot taken at an angle might help.

Sometimes there are just odd things. An unglazed and spur marks can occasionally be found. An unglazed foot rim would normally make the use of spur supports unnecessary.
But... with that size of item it could be that they just wanted to make sure that the bottom did not sag during firing.

I'm not satisfied that this is an antique but have insufficient time at the moment to prepare images to underpin my opinion. It make take a few more days before I can satisfy obligations to others that preoccupy me, but I'll try my best to get back ASAP. Hopefully someone else has an opinion too.

In general, though, the better view makes me believe that this isn't an 18th century dish and may even be European, perhaps from the Bayeux or other kilns in France. But I believe I can make a better case speaking with my props.

Best regards,

Bill H.

I've attached three images containing, from the top down:

A. Clips of women and children as painted on 18th and early 19th century Chinese famille rose porcelains(the last row is 19th).

B. An image of a circa 1920-30 Chinese porcelain pillow painted with playing children.

C. Images from mid-20th century and later Chinese porcelain paintings of women and children.

While Barry's dish is technically very nice in its treatment of Yongzheng-period motifs, especially the lozenge frets, other repeating patterns and gilt scrolls on the border, the women are not particularly true to the averages in 18th century painting style. Their expressions are homogenous, almost like they've all just taken their Prozac. The children suffer much the same lack of inspiration on the part of the painter to give them individual personalities.

The Republic pillow painting image (B) shows (to me at least) how traditional painting style began to stiffen in this manner quickly after the end of the Qing dynasty, when artists were liberated to seek their own muse instead of follow the ways of old masters. Finally, since the mid-to-late 20th century and thereafter, Chinese porcelain painters have still been able to reproduce old motifs correctly, but their portraiture still falls short of traditional standards, wherein the old painters were able to show figures with a high degree of animation and interaction. That element is missing on this dish, in my opinion.

I mentioned Bayeux porcelains and include a link to one 19th century example. However, I couldn't find enough later examples to make a clear point that this dish may be this brand of chinoiserie. I know the Samson factory was capable of doing much the same quality of work, but I don't have an example with the women and children motif.

Following ar a couple of links to other contemporary efforts of Chinese porcelain painters to reproduce the old style, ineffectively in my opinion.

Best regards,

Bill H.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/261185935440?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

http://www.ebay.com/itm/150547601992?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649







URL Title :bayeux

Larger rear view showing stilt marks

Hi Barry and all,

Maybe both....
Japanese porcelain decorated in China. Not Unusual. Herewithe a plate which probably decoraded in China but the back can tell us that the porcelain was made in Japan and also at what time. It has the impressed mark of Yamatoku. This kiln was/is known of producing transferware. This impressed mark was mostly used around 1910-1920.

Regards,

Arjan

I cannot thank everyone for their help so far, but boy am I confused now. I will try and add more tomorrow when I have had a chance to get my head around the excellent and considered comments.

Meanwhile I have posted more pictures of the footrim etc.

Kind regards Barry

Another of footrim

face close up

Okay, thanks agiain for all your help so far.

This charger does have wear to the enamels and gold but as a charger of this size its use was more decorative so I would expect wear to be fairly minimal. The rim edge is caramel in colour similar to 18th century pieces. I purchased the charger at a local auction house where it had been listed as Daoguang painted mid 19th century. The auction house and asian art appraiser are well known to me and they are used to handling exclusive sales of high end Chinese and Japanese porcelain in the 10's and hundreds of thousands of pounds. My only reason to cast a little doubt about it being Chinese and possibly Japanese was the stilt marks. I felt the painting was Chinese but the stilt marks had me a little concerned, if Japanese then stilt marks were not needed after the mid 19th century due to advances in kiln management etc. So I felt mid 19th century to be right. No one who has commented so far seems to think Japanese. Bill suggests possibly not antique and maybe European. I still believe it to be mid 19th century and either Chinese or Japanese. I hope the additional pictures will help the experts here to give me a definitive answer.

Kind regards Barry

Of course I will defer to Bill and Arjan, but it looks to me like the faces were drawn by a Chinese rather than a European decorator, and in an 18th century style. Also, the decoration on the plate rim (seen in the photo of the entire plate, above) looks like some of the Qianlong export borders from the second half of the reign that I have seen. Arjan raises an interesting point, however, about some Japanese porcelain plate blanks being over-enamelled in China.

Thank you Bill, Peter, Adam, Arjan and Robert.

I have been looking here: http://www.santoslondon.com/chinese-porcelain-stock.asp?catName=yongzheng-famille-rose

They have a good close up high resolution zoom feature so you can get a good look at the faces of the people on a number of Chinese Yongzheng plates. They all differ quite a lot in their execution with one in particular virtually identical to mine 8th row down and 2nd in. http://www.santoslondon.com/chinese-porcelain-details.asp?stockID=168

After looking at 100's of images including some of my own pieces over the last few days. I agree the chargers decoration looks to be Yongzheng including the iron red lingzhi to the reverse. But I do bow to the experts better knowledge.

I have seen many early mid and late 20th century pieces showing figures but to me this charger just does not look like a 20th century piece. I am not saying it is Yongzheng or later Qianlong I just feel it is 19th century.

Would everyone's opinion be it is definately Chinese decorated and not Japanese even with the stilt marks.

Regards Barry

Herewith are links to images of three Yongzheng period plates of the type shown in the Santos catalog but of photographic quality (hopefully). I didn't see anything in the Santos catalog or these pictures at the links below that compares to the lack of animation in the figural painting on your charger.

I'm also uploading two items containing images of high-quality Chinese fakes. First is a "Drunken Yang Guifei" repro plate, then next a comparative look at a fake Rockefeller pattern dish. Both of these items have appeared on the market in quantity during the past decade. Perhaps this will help add some perspective on my comments to date.







Best regards,

Bill H.

Like. Good presentation!

I have to say that this piece was made in the 20th century. Some of the decorations on this plate are seriously flawed, and treated with haste and carelessness. The outer bands and the red outlines look good (obviously painted by another artisan/s), but when comes to mixing or blending colors, various area of the central decorations are just undesirable or questionable to a critical eye.

One point that I want to include is the treatment of the stack marks (left during the kiln process). There is a deliberate arrangement which left those "neat" marks underneath your plate. Old porcelain pieces do not seem to have those type of stacking marks; so far, I have not seen any samples similar to yours.

This is 100% French! And a very nice piece. Bayeux.

I have 14 of these plates, exact match.

The plate is a Samson of Paris piece. Here is a link to gallery that has a few like it, http://www.alaintruong.com/archives/2010/06/04/18122028.html

Billy D, many thanks for the link. Those are the kind of Samson dishes I was looking for but couldn't find five years ago.

Best regards,

Bill H.

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