The appearance of famille verte rectangular or octagonal tureens and covers formed in Western shapes marks the emergence in Chinese export porcelain of a new category of table vessels. Dinner services of earlier date made for the Western market normally only seem to contain circular tureens, or deep dishes with domed covers, if one can judge from the earliest surviving armorial porcelain services. Elements such as silver-shaped tureens, sauce-boats, and other essentially metal-form vessels, are not found in most documented services of late Kangxi date (though candlesticks do appear). It has been suggested by D.F. Lunsingh Scheurleer, op. cit., p.188, that the tureen offered in this lot represents the earliest form of any rectangular tureen made for Western use. It may, therefore, be significant that it is reproducing in Chinese porcelain a metal shape which would have suggested that it was a staple part of any dinner service of the period; although it is in fact a close copy of a faience original, made at the Guillebaud factory at Rouen in about 1728. The original Rouen tureen, cover and stand, now in the Musée des Beaux Arts at Rouen, was part of a set the Town presented to the Duke of Montmorancy-Luxembourg, when he was appointed Governor of Normandy in 1728; cf. W.B. Honey, European Ceramic Art, ill.88. The Chinese version illustrated by Lunsingh-Scheurleer, op. cit., col.pl.C, is owned by the Abbey of Berne in North Brabant. It has been suggested that, while the unique form of finial is traditionally called a snake, it does in fact represent a coiled eel, a much more appropriate choice given the standard types of fish available for recipes in the faience producing capitals of France and Holland.

Two other examples of these splendid tureens have been published; one with its stand was exhibited at the China Institute in America, China Trade Porcelain, 1973-4, cover and pl.23; while the Mottahedeh Collection has just the tureen and cover, reproduced by D.S. Howard and J. Ayers, op. cit., no.570. A date of 1750 suggested for the Mottahedeh one seems somewhat late, especially in view of the fact that the Rouen example dated 1728 is likely to have been copied close to that period, given the style of enamelling which seems transitional rose-verte