A CHINESE EXPORT PORCELAIN 'DON QUIXOTE' PLATE

QIANLONG PERIOD, CIRCA 1750

Details

Richly enameled with the hapless knight wearing blue armor and a rose cape as he rides his humble steed, Rocinante, a lance in his hand and the barber's basin on his head, the faithful Sancho Panza walking to the right, two women peeking from behind a tree at the left, the border with four scrollwork cartouches painted in grisaille with alternating landscapes and bird-and-flower scenes
9 1/8 in. (23.2 cm.) diameter


Lot Essay

This plate illustrates an episode from Chapter XXI in Part I of Cervantes' novel, in which the fanciful protagonist charges at a barber, believing that the shaving-basin he has placed on his head as a makeshift rain-hat is the mythical 'helmet of Mambrino'. The figures at the left side represent a pair of women who laugh as the fancy-struck Don Quixote places the brass bowl atop his own head. The composition originates with a cartoon painted by Charles-Antoine Coypel, circa 1714, as a design for a series of tapestries based on the novel, which were produced by the Gobelins factory in Paris in the 1720s.
Coypel's designs then formed the basis for engraved illustrations by Bernard Picart, circa 1733 and Jacob Folkema, circa 1741, the latter of which is believed to have formed the print source for an earlier series of Chinese export porcelain wares, circa 1741, including the previous lot in this sale. In the present version of the scene from Cervantes' novel, dating about ten years later, the painting of the landscape has become more Chinese in style, the barber and his horse have disappeared and the basin on Quixote's head has come to resemble a black hat. Both Howard & Ayers and Hervouët & Bruneau speculate that these circa 1750 plates were based on the earlier Chinese export porcelain, rather than on one of the Coypel-inspired European engravings.
For an plate of the same type, see D. Howard and J. Ayers, China for the West, London and New York, 1978, I, pp. 345-346, no. 344. For an illustrated comparison between two larger plates of the 1740 and 1750 types, see F. & N. Hervouët and Y. Bruneau, La Porcelaine des Compagnies des Indes a Décor Occidental, Paris, 1986, pp. 194-195, nos. 9.2-9.3. For two further examples, see the plate sold from the Dr. Anton C.R. Dreesmann collection, Christie's, New York, 10 April 2002, lot 451; and the example in the J. Louis Binder collection sold by Christie's, London, 17 June 2003, lot 96. An oval platter from the collection of Ann & Gordon Getty was sold by Christie's, New York, 24 October 2022, lot 961.