Yongzheng era, circa 1725 With famille verte sprays enclosing a rouge-de-fer and gold well; with a central armorial beneath heavy mantling in famille rose enamels. This is one of the earliest examples of famille rose, made for the very wealthy London merchant Sir John Lambert, who, as a director of the South Sea Company, saw its failure and his own ruin in 1720-21 and who died in 1723 of a broken heart, 8 3/4 in. Diam. The service would have been ordered before the extent of his colossal failure became known and is one of only two known examples of armorial porcelain with famille rose enamels that can reasonably be dated to 1721-22 (the other, being the Visconti service (made for the Italian market). D. Howard, The Choice of the Private Trader (Zwemmer, London), pp.56-57, no. 30. See also D. Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain, vol. I, p.206; D. Howard and J. Ayers (Sotheby Parke-Bernet Publications, London), China for the West, vol. II, p.407, no. 406.

One plate with highest museum quality restoration