Dish; China, India Company, 18th century.
Porcelain with gilt enamel.
Provenance: private collection conceived since the 1970s between London and Madrid.
Measurements: 6 x 42 cm (diameter).
Dish made of porcelain, decorated in the eaves with flowers that form a chain, thus aesthetically defining this area. The centre has a border running around the outer perimeter in gilt with small cartouches at the ends, ornamented inside with different simplified motifs. The centre has a large heraldic coat of arms.
The East India Company was a generic term for companies that managed trade between a European metropolis and its colonies. Chinese manufacturers soon realised that Europeans were not connoisseurs of porcelain, and produced export porcelain that was vulgar, even flawed, but which in the eyes of Westerners turned out to be true works of art. Once the trade was regularly organised, the India Companies supplied Chinese artists with European models, both for forms and decoration. Throughout the 18th century the blue-and-white series persisted, but of inferior quality, which was then called Nanjing porcelain.