EARLY QIANLONG PERIOD, CIRCA 1735-1750

Chinese covers to be placed over dishes are extremely rare in either painted enamel or porcelain, and an example of this type appears to be unrecorded. Smaller painted enamel dish-covers were made as part of the extensive porcelain dinner service bearing the arms of Dom Gaspar de Saldanha e Albuquerque; see the painted enamel covers which are in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, the Brooklyn Museum, New York, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota, and the Museu do Oriente, Lisbon (see China of All Colours, Painted Enamels on Copper, publ. Jorge Welsh, London, 2015, pp. 66-71). Only two English armorial services (for Sayer and for Talbot), dating to circa 1725, are recorded with porcelain dish-covers.