Lot 82
82
A RARE SET OF FOUR EUROPEAN SUBJECT PAINTED ENAMEL PLAQUES
A RARE SET OF FOUR EUROPEAN SUBJECT PAINTED ENAMEL PLAQUES
A RARE SET OF FOUR EUROPEAN SUBJECT PAINTED ENAMEL PLAQUES
A RARE SET OF FOUR EUROPEAN SUBJECT PAINTED ENAMEL PLAQUES
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MARCHANT, EST. 1925 (Lots 59-100 and 116-173)
A RARE SET OF FOUR EUROPEAN SUBJECT PAINTED ENAMEL PLAQUES

EARLY QIANLONG PERIOD, CIRCA 1740

Details
A RARE SET OF FOUR EUROPEAN SUBJECT PAINTED ENAMEL PLAQUES
EARLY QIANLONG PERIOD, CIRCA 1740
Finely enameled in the famille rose palette with scenes of elegantly dressed Europeans and putti at leisure in Chinese palace gardens, several with small dogs, one with putto chasing a hare, antiques and a tiled floor visible through the pavilion windows behind them, modern gilt wood frames
7 1/8 in. (17.8 cm) high, 4 ¼ in. (10.2 cm) wide, each
Provenance
The collection of Mr. And Mrs. Rafi Y. Mottahedeh.
The Mottahedeh Collection; Sotheby’s, New York, 19 October 2000, lot 412.
Literature
Published in China for the West, vol. II by David Howard and John Ayers, page 632, no. 658.
Published by J.A. Loyd Hyde in Chinese Painted Enamels in Private and Museum Collections, no. 4.
Exhibited
China Institute in America, 1969-70, p. 12, no. 4.
The De Cordova Museum, 1979.
The Chinese Porcelain Company, Chinese Painted Enamels of the 18th Century, October 1993, pl. 44.

Lot Essay

Developed in the first decades of the 18th century in response to Limoges enamels, Chinese painted enamels on copper , or yang ci (foriegn porcelain) were produced at both Canton and the Imperial workshops in Beijing. Deemed a highly desirable curiousity in both East and West, painted enamels were often made in contemporaneous porcelain forms. These small plaques were likely destined to be table screens. Compare a set of four and a pair published by L. Vinhais and J. Welsh, China of All Colours: Painted Enamels on Copper, nos. 76 and 85, though all six show European figures in simple landscape settings. The exaggerated linear perspective of the buildings in the present set reflects the newness of this European style approach to composition in the Chinese painter's oeuvre.

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