Of round form, with a shallow bowl and gently everted flat rim, finely decorated in bright shades of famille verte enamels and gilding and painted in the centre with a large roundel depicting an elaborate scene set in a terraced garden of ladies and children playing, two ladies stand underneath a gnarled tree; one holding an open fan, both dressed in patterned robes and wearing gilded head-dresses, a golden ball suspended in the air between them, to their side a large plantain behind which a third lady in long robes hide, two small boys approaches the standing ladies, a low table with a large vase filled with flowers and stylised rock-work, and a tall carved stand holding a vase painted with a small white rabbit and filled with flowers, stylised rock-work and a small flag both on the other side of the ladies, in the foreground a fenced pond with carp and aquatic grasses, further low tables with vases and a bonsai-tree nearby, on the right hand side of the scene a high terrace decorated with panels painted with a horse, a mythological animal and ruyi-shapes, leaning over the terrace-wall, looking on, a fourth lady also in elaborate dress and head-dress and a further fifth lady arriving behind her carrying a small bowl on a tray, the rim with again a very fine and elaborate border of eight small shaped cartouches, four painted with antiques and precious objects, two with pairs of shrews playing amongst branches and two with pairs of well-delineated birds with their beaks and tips of wings touching, all reserved on a ground of various flowered diamond, fish-roe, honey-comb and coin patterns further adorned with finely painted flower-prays including lotus, peony, chrysanthemum and lilies, the back rim with three flowering branches, the glazed base painted with a stylised Artemisia leaf inside double blue circular lines.
Provenance
From the collection of Herbert Küttim.
Herbert Küttim (1901-1984) was brought up in Estonia. During the Second World War he and his family fled from Estonia and settled in Sweden in 1944.
Herbert Küttim was an entrepeneur working in many different fields. It was during a trip to London in the 1950´s that his passion for porcelain began. During the following decades he travelled many times to London, filled his blue Chevrolet with antique porcelain, which he brought back to Sweden. Some was kept in his own collection, other pieces were sold on. His sons - who often accompanied him on his journeys to England - and his grandchildren inherited this collection.
