Lot Essay
There is no real tradition in Chinese ceramics of creating brightly coloured models of animals for a secular function, although of course there is a long tradition of creating glazed pottery animals as well as figures and vessels to accompany the deceased into the Afterlife. It was the effect of Western demand on the export trade with China, and in particular the Western tradition of using the ceramic medium to create free-standing sculptural works, which led some of the East India Companies to begin to commission birds and animals resembling those available to buy at European potteries. Some of the most spectacular enamelled birds and animals appear from about the 1730's as specific copies of Western originals, mostly in Chinese porcelain copying Delft, but on occasion, reproducing European porcelain originals. This apparently unpublished pair of large crested pheasants, on very distinctive and large rockworks bases, seem to be deliberately close copying such 'bird on rockwork' groups as were created at the Meissen factory in Saxony, from about 1720. In particular, the extremely large plinth in relation to the body size of the bird is very different from that normally found on standing models of phoenix, pheasants and hawks, all of which tend to be on rather small and relatively insignificant simple rocky bases.