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I need some help with (dating) this jar. I reconise the mark (Qianlong)so it is chinese but probely it is 20th century. Anybody have an idea about this one??

with regards,

Arjan

Arjan,

Looks like printed design on good-quality paste.

You want to know if it is 5, 10 or 20 years old? The companies mass-producing such items might have made the same thing over the course of a decade and may still be making this one.

Best regards,
Judy

Judy,

Because of the details "printing" was also my first tought but also with the help of a magnifying-glass I can't find any dots or something. I'm new with this, so maybe you can explane to me how I can see that this is printed. Hereby some details
Thanks again,

Arjan

Arjan,

The first tipoff to printing is the element around the top of the shoulder, 3 on each face. They look identical, and are something taken from another design, possibly a border around a plate or something similar.

Another tipoff is you can see no texturing to the design at all--no brush strokes. Edges of the images may be slightly blurry.

The frequently used printing technique was to use either a mechanical printing press or woodblocks to lay ink in a design on a thin piece of paper. Many many of these would be printed, one for each item to be decorated. After this has dried it is either laid down, pigmented-side down, on the piece to be decorated and then wetted, or wetted first.

On items with concave surfaces, such as bowls, plates, saucers, you can sometimes see where the piece of paper creased because it was being adapted to a non-flat surface. Sometimes you can see a little break in the design where the paper creased or tore in the process of being handled.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Judy

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