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Came across 2 of these bowls. 11" diameter. I asked in a forum on Facebook and got 3 different answers. One said replicas of Ming Dynasty imperial Kiln, another said fake.. and another said late qing mark guangxu, late 19th century. According to the family I got them from. Relative was in the US military and was in China during the boxer rebellion and he acquired these then. So which is it? thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

Let me make a few comments based on the information provided and the attached images.
I cannot verify the complete authenticity of the provenance, but at least, the base mark supporting it — 大清光緒年製 (Made in the Qing Dynasty, Guangxu era) — fits perfectly into the story.
I'm concerned about the pinholes (glaze defects and tiny holes) that appear just outside the raised area. Even in the photo, you can see tiny, scattered holes dotting the surface of the porcelain. These are frequently found in folk kilns (which produced items for the general public), during periods of mass production in the late Qing Dynasty (such as the Guangxu era), and in inferior imitations.
Finally, a few words about the base mark.Based on the photo alone, it is highly likely that this is “not a traditional, hand-drawn piece created by a craftsman using a brush, but rather the result of a copperplate transfer or modern printing and transfer techniques.”

With regards,
I.Nagy

not a ceramics expert but hopefully this helps: the mark on the base is claiming to be a Guangxu era reign mark (1875-1908) but the many imperfections on the base indicate that this is not a product of imperial kilns. Whether the decoration on the front is replicating a Ming era design I don't know, but the dish is not a Ming dish. if you are certain the two dishes were acquired by your relative at the time of the Boxer Rebellion, then they were likely new when purchased.

The decoration doesn't really look Guangxu to me, especially the Greek key design on the outer rim of the plate. I share Nagy's concern about the spurs and other defects in the glaze. My opinion is that this piece is later into the Republic period as Guangxu marks continued to be used into the late 1940s, which is perhaps when this dates to or even early PRC.

The Boxer Rebellion was a 127 years ago; sometimes information gets lost through the generations. I knew someone who had a large rather nice collection from her step-grandfather who she claimed was in the China Marines during the Boxer Rebellion, but thinking about it further, he was not even born yet and was stationed in Hong Kong in the years after WWII where the collection was acquired though many of the items pre-dated that time.

Guangxu marked bit imo made around the 1980's.
Regards,
Mark@imperial
Adams Asian Art

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