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I always like a conundrum...Don't you?!!

Well here's one for all you 'Experts' out there!

This dish was purchased by me as 'Transitional Chinese' and sold on to a well known respected dealer here in the UK.

A few weeks went by and I received an e-mail requesting a refund as the dish was "Not Chinese at all but Japanese" ?

Now I don't know about you guys but I tend to know the difference...

Anyway of I went to several Japanese specialists who thought it was time for the funny farm for me!

Next up I consulted a colleague who happens to have the entire set of volumes of 'Shibata' and proclaimed that it was most certainly NOT Japanese in design.

So, off to our well known auction houses and so far, now two months on none of them have come up with anything even close!

A well known member of this forum expressed his thought that it is either late 18th or early 19th Century Chinese. Now I would tend to agree with that though the fact that it has 'heap and pile' is a bit confusing.

Many specialists will tell you that during the Qing 18th Century cobalt was in short supply and so used sparingly, so why would they lay it on so thick especially if it was just for export?

Anyway I reckon there must be somebody out in internet land who knows exactly what this pattern is and for which market it was made...I await with baited breath!!!

Good luck!

I don't have a problem with this. It looks to me to be Chinese and to date from the very late 18th to the early 19th century; circa 1790 to 1830. Probably closer to 1830.

This is a Chinese dish however it's made in Southern China's most like Fujian province most likely in the Dehua area. Widely exported to SE Asia. Dating should be 18th century/ Maybe that caused the confusion as it has a very different "feel" to those of typical Chinese export items made in Jingdezhen.

Hello Gary,

I'm not an expert but I hope you'll appreciate my opinion as well.
I'm quit sure your dish is Chinese and this kind of ware is called: Bleu the Hue. It's Chinese export porcelain for the Vietnamese market and that (kind of) mark is rather common on that ware. For a dating late 19th. - early 20th. century.

Regards,

Arjan

Yet again I have received many thoughts on it's origin but that wasn't the actual question!!

I already know this is Chinese chaps what I don't know is "Which market this pattern was produced for" and Arjan is closest on this point!

The stylisation is in my opinion typical of the better Korean pieces of the 19th Century but Arjan has suggested off forum that these pieces were actually commissioned at Jingdezhen for the Vietnamese court and the pattern and mark, which reads different in Vietnamese by the way, fits in perfectly with those pieces...This particular dish with it's 'high quality' painting of a bird and flowers would be for the use of the Royal Princes!

My thanks to Arjan for his help on this and my acknowledgement to the Gotheborg forum from which I was banned many years ago for promoting the hollow line theory!

C'est la vie

Hello Tony, Pyro,Gary and others,

First of all I see that I wrote Bleu the Hue but it is Bleu DE Hue of course.
I don't know if Tony and Pyro can agree about "Bleu de Hue" but I choosed for a later dating (most likely 19th.) because of the Phoenix ( I saw a lot of them on 19th and 20th. ct. items) and the rather crude decoration. Of what I've seen are the earlier examples more refined. But.... I can be wrong of course.

Regards,

Arjan

Sorry Arjan but I do not agree that this is Blu de Hue. Geberally Blu de Hue are fine blue and white items made in Jingdezhen for the Hue court and high society. However as for this dish, the base reveals very clearly of it's south Chinese manufacture. As for which market? None really specific. Such dishes were made for the domestic market but since south China provinces like Fujian port were also major transit points for products shipped to South East Asia. As a result these items also ended up in many markets there. I do not think there was a specific market this dish was created for unlike Blue de Hue or Benjarong items.

Sorry, too fast with "my phoenix" ...it's just a bird (swalow?) I see now.

Arjan

Hi Gary,
I agree that the colour of the blue is similar to some of the bleu de hue pieces made for the Vietnamese market. But there the similarity ends.

I encourage you to look at both the shape of the dish and the foot rim, which is identical to those dishes made for both export to South East Asia (and Persia), and for the domestic market,
around the late 18th and early 19th century.

The "hollow line" theory is another topic, and you are not alone in being kicked off Gotheborg for sharing a viewpoint not accepted by their close-minded brethren.

Regards
Tony

The pattern probably developed from an earlier original Chinese piece but simplified and debased.

Here is an earlier English Delft piece circa 1760 obviously influenced by a Qianlong or earlier pattern.

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