18TH CENTURY

Compare two shoes with a metal-hinged cover decorated with famille rose flowers on a white-glazed ground, one catalogued as a bonbonnière in Michel Beurdeley, Porcelain of the East India Company, p. 177, cat. no. 108, and the other from the Copeland Collection in William R Sargeant, The Copeland Collection: Chinese and Japanese Ceramic Figures, Peabody Museum of Salem, 1991, pp.160-161, no. 74. In the latter volume, Sargeant discusses the European versions which inspired the production of these Chinese-made export pieces, for example an almost identical soft-paste counterpart dated to around 1750 from the Mennecy factory in France, as well as further similar shoes produced in the Chantilly and Doccia factories.