Page 12 - Chinese Export Porcelain MARCHANT GALLERY 2015

6. Pair of famille rose semi-erotic beaker cups and saucers, painted with a bewigged man in a rose-pink coat with lace
sleeves holding a basket of flowers beside a girl holding an elaborate gilt branch of flowering peony and lily, wearing
flowing robes in shades of blue, open at the bodice and revealing her petticoat, all within a pink-ground diaper band,
the beaker cup with similar decoration repeated on each side.
The saucer 5 ⅜ inches, 13.6 cm diameter, the cup 3 inches, 7.6 cm diameter.
Yongzheng, 1723-1735.
• From the collection of Jaques & Galila Hollander, Belgium, inventory no. P. 6. 117.
• An identical cup and saucer is illustrated by Conor Mahony & Khalil Rizk in The Chinese Porcelain Company
exhibition catalogue Important Chinese Export Porcelain from Kangxi to Jiaqing, 1999, no. 29, p. 46, where the
authors note ‘the application of famille rose enamels during the Yongzheng period was not to be surpassed. Thickly
painted in a variety of subtly shaded tones, the extravagant use of famille rose enamels of this time period is exhibited
on this exquisitely decorated beaker and saucer.’
• An identical saucer from Van Messel, Amsterdam, is illustrated by François & Nicole Hervouët & Yves Bruneau
in La Porcelaine des Compagnies des Indes, no. 7. 34, p. 156 and colour page 157; another, in the Boymans-van
Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, is illustrated by D. F. Lunsingh Scheurleer in Chinese Export Porcelain, Chine de
Commande, no. 220.
• A pair bowls and covers of this pattern are illustrated by Michael & Ewa Cohen in the Cohen & Cohen exhibition
catalogue School’s Out, 2001, no. 20, p. 24.
• A teapoy and cover of this pattern is illustrated by David S. Howard & John Ayers in China for the West, Volume
two, no. 356, pp. 364/5, where the author notes that the design is clearly after a European original and that ‘there
are a number of examples of erotic versions of otherwise polite European subjects and it is natural that they should
follow a year or two after the original. This would be a method of adapting something of limited commercial appeal
to please a wider public.’

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