A RARE CHINESE EXPORT PORCELAIN PLATE

The scene is derived from a painting by Annibale Carraci formerly in the Palazzo Farnese Rome and now in Naples. Famous in his life time and now, he was a Bolognese who worked in Rome. Hercules, the personification of a man strong in mind and body, is choosing between languos vice, gesturing outwards and down, and upright virtue, gesturing to higher matters. Borders of oak garlands, again symbolizing strength stretch between rococo cartouches.

Another plate of this design is illustrated in David Howard & John Ayers, China for the West, Vol. I, No. 329, p. 333.