BH08
Further images
Of circular saucer dish form, finely painted in bright famille verte enamels and highlighted in gold with a design of two colourful long-tailed birds, one with a yellow breast flying towards the other who is perched on a gnarled branch, amongst peony blooms and prunus picked out in red and gold, all encircled by a border of further peony sprays, the rim with four oval cartouches containing either a bird among prunus or a butterfly among lilies, each reserved on a ground of red peony flowers on a stippled green ground, the back rim with sprays of flowers below a rim border of lattice work with cartouches containing fish alternating with prunus the base with a double blue circle.
Literature
Known to the Chinese as yingcai (strong colours) the term 'famille verte' was used for the first time by Albert Jacquemart (1808 - 1875) a French collector and published in his book, Histoire de la Céramique, in 1873, where he categorised Chinese porcelain into groups depending on the predominant colour.
There is a collection of Chinese Kangxi period famille verte chargers
Of the similar famille verte dishes in the Augustus the Strong collection, inventory number PO 6929 is a smaller dish with very similar design to ours: two birds, one perched on a branch, the other flying among insects. The dishes with inventory numbers PO 3040 and PO 3039 are of the same large size as our dish, while both the dishes with inventory numbers PO 3037 and PO 3036 have a design of birds on branches.
There is another comparable dish illustrated by Eva Strober in: La Maladie de Porcelaine, East Asian Porcelain from the Collection of Augustus the Strong, (Leipzig 2001, p 72).
