Page 48 - Chinese Export Porcelain MARCHANT GALLERY 2015

31. A set of three plates, painted in grisaille, heightened in gilt with scenes of ‘The Nativity, The Crucifixion, and The
Resurrection’, each in high detail within a floral border of swags and foliage; the Nativity decorated in the centre with
‘The Adoration of the Shepherds, Mary seated to the child’s left in front of two oxen with a recumbent donkey in the
foreground; the Crucifixion with one soldier mocking and four others casting lots for the robe, in the background Mary
and St John and a crowd, two other crosses with figures surrounding the cross and Roman soldiers playing dice in the
foreground; the Resurrection with the figure of an angel seated nearby and soldiers in the foreground.
All 9 inches, 22.8 cm diameter.
Qianlong, circa 1745.
• From the collection of Dr Hardouin, Nantes, western France.
• These three plates are from a very rare series of five produced for the Dutch market, which are taken from an early
eighteenth century Lutheran bible with prints by the Amsterdam poet and engraver Jan Luyken (1649-1712).
• An identical crucifixion and resurrection plate in the Musée National de Céramique, Sèvres, acquired in 1840,
inventory nos. MNC 2877-1 & 2, are illustrated by Christine Shimizu and Laure Chabanne in L’Odyssée de la
Porcelaine Chinoise, 2004, no. 172, p. 219; another resurrection plate is illustrated by John Goldsmith Phillips in
China Trade Porcelain, An Account of Its Historical Background, Manufacture, and Decoration and a Study of the Helena
Woolworth McCann Collection, pl. 8, p. 74.
• A nativity plate with a du Paquier border together with crucifixion and resurrection plates similar to the above are
illustrated by Cohen & Cohen in their exhibition catalogue School’s Out, 2001, nos. 11-13, pp. 16/7; an identical
crucifixion plate is illustrated by David S. Howard & John Ayers in China for the West, Volume one, no. 312,
pp. 318/9.

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