A set of five Chinese blue and white dishes

Chinese porcelain decorated with this design was almost certainly made for the Dutch market and can be found decorated in both underglaze blue and gilt, as in the present lot, and in famille rose enamels. The design is similar to a more elaborate version including a caterpillar and butterfly which has probably been taken from a botanical drawing in the style of the Dutch-Swiss botanist, Marie Sybille Merian (1646-1717), who travelled extensively to the Dutch West Indies and who made drawings for a book first pulished in Holland in 1705, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, and in France in 1771 as Histoire Générale des Insectes de Surinam et de toute d'Europe. It has also been suggested that the border design, and indeed the flowers, are related to designs by Cornelis Pronk, a Dutch draughtsman working for the Dutch East India Company during this period. For an enamelled example, see the Collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, illustrated by C.J.A. Jörg, Chinese Ceramics, 1997, no. 334, p. 287; and in the Hodroff Collection, The Choice of the Private Trader, D.S. Howard, 1994, no. 60.

See illustration