QIANLONG, CIRCA 1740

Details

A set of six Imari 'La dame au Parasol' plates
QIANLONG, CIRCA 1740
Painted in underglaze-blue, iron-red and gilt after a design by Cornelis Pronk, depicting a lady approaching three cormorants on a riverbank, with her parasol-bearer standing behind her, within a narrow band of trailing stems of flowers divided by quatrefoil roundels at the well, within iron-red and gilt rectangular cell-pattern reserved with bird and figural cartouches, the reverse with seven underglaze-blue insects, one chip
23.7 cm. diam. (6)

Special notice

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Lot Essay

The Dutch draughtsman, Cornelis Pronk (1691-1754), was commissioned in 1734 by directors of the Dutch East India Company to produce designs to be transferred on to Chinese porcelain, which they hoped would be more successful than Chinese designs. However, due to the expense of transferring his designs onto porcelain, the volume of Pronk's work is relatively small, and his designs ceased in 1738. The design 'La Dame au Parasol' was the first drawing Pronk made for the Dutch East India Company, the watercolour of it is in the Rijksmuseum. Services with this design are known in blue and white and in the famille rose palette, as well as Chinese Imari.
See C.J.A. Jörg, Pronk Porcelain, Groningen, 1980, pp.14-28 and pp.61-73, for a full discussion of this design.

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