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I am looking for any info you guys can give me on this saucer. It's 6.5inch across and I am told it comes from a 400 year old shipwreck. I would also be interested in the significance of the wax seal or the squashed rollo in the centre of the plate.
Thanks in advance,
Dave.

Hello Dave,

Sorry no. The evidence that it isn’t 400 years old is….. that seal.
This seal is a so called “jian ding” and means that this item was allowed for export out of China. This was never allowed for items older than 1795. (Qianlong period or older).

Regards,

Arjan

Hi Dave,
This is Chinese, made in the thousands for Chinese domestic use, and dates in my opinion to the 19th century; probably second quarter. Say circa 180 years old.

The red wax seal indicates it was approved for export by the mainland Chinese antique inspectors. It is not a sign of age but generally one of poor quality, as permission to export anything good was usually denied. These wax seals were subsequently replaced by adhesive labels.

Regards
Tony

Thanks for the help guys.
just one more thing,
Any ideas on the reign mark?

Hi Dave,

Those stylized minyao marks are hard to read and even harder if you can't (realy) read the characters (like me). The Da,Qing,nian and zhi characters are often stylized in the same way (sometimes changed). The emperors'names in the middle are sometimes regonizable. If I have to guess I would say this could be Daoguang.

Regards,

Arjan

someone will probably recognize this one, but it isn't a normal reign mark, rather it is a highly stylized version of either a reign or other mark. a lot of popular decorative designs gradually came to be rendered in a more and more cursive and stylized form over time, simply due to the pace at which artisans were asked to work I would think. This lends a nice abstract overlay to what were originally clearly representational motifs. This also occurred for some marks, and you have one here. I don't happen to know this one though.

It isn't worth much, but by minyao standards, that's a not unattractive piece. The minyao with the wax seals on them get much uglier (and grubbier) than that.

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