A CHINESE-EXPORT REVERSE-PAINTED MIRROR PICTURE

18TH CENTURY

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A CHINESE-EXPORT REVERSE-PAINTED MIRROR PICTURE
18th Century
Depicting the Judgement of Paris, Paris awards the apple to Venus, Minerva and Diana stand either side, with Cupid seated in the left corner and a dog in the right corner, within a simulated rosewood and parcel-gilt frame, previously with a cresting
29 in. x 24½ in. (74 cm. x 62 cm.)

Lot Essay

The same print-source, depicting 'The Triumph of Venus' but used in reverse, appears on plates manufactured in China in the late 1740s (D.F. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Chinesisches und Japanisches Porzellan in in Europaishen Fassungen, 1980, no. 225. The execution of one such mirror painting from an engraving in a watercolour from the series 'Cantonese Occupations' circa 1760, illustrated in T. Screech, 'Glass paintings on glass and vision in eighteenth-century Japan', Apollo, 1998, p. 31, fig. 8.
A Chinese-Export plate decorated with this version of 'The Judgment of Paris', was one of a set recorded at Erddig, Denbighshire, in 1789 (J. Mallet, 'Pottery and Porcelain at Erddig', Apollo, July 1978, p. 42, fig. 3).

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