EARLY QIANLONG PERIOD, CIRCA 1740

This plate is from the second of two Imperial banqueting services, bearing the imperial Russian coat-of-arms, and made for the Russian court. The first service, dating to c. 1720, was ordered for Emperor Peter the Great, and Tatiana Arapova suggests that this service would have been ordered for Empress Elizabeth no later than 1742; see T. B. Arapova, `The double-headed eagle on Chinese porcelain', Apollo, January 1992, pp. 21-23. Another plate from this service, from The Peter H. Frelinghuysen Jr. Collection, was sold at Christie's New York, 24 January 2012, lot 124; and yet another, from the Collections of Lily & Edmond J. Safra, was sold at Sotheby's New York, 18 October 2011, lot 4.