Decorated in famille verte enamels, gold, and underglaze blue, with mandarin ducks and lotus plants bordered by narrow bands on the rim, alternating cartouches of carp and crayfish amongst water plants reserved at the well on a trellis-diaper ground, central scene within a ruyi-edged roundel of two mandarin ducks amongst lotus plants, flowering prunus branches, trellis-diaper border, and double ring on the reverse.
For an identical dish with the same dimension, presently in the Reeves Center Collection, see Thomas V. Jr Litzenburg, Chinese Export Porcelain in the Reeves Center Collection at Washington and Lee University, 2003, p. 54.
Another dish is in the collection of the Topkapi Sarah Museum and published by Ayers and Krahl in Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, A complete catalogue, 1986, vol. III, p. 1168.
The finely painted decoration on this deep dish is emblematic of perseverance, harmony, and marital bliss on Chinese culture. Its design is representative of a group of closely related famille verte wares, made during the first two decades of the eighteenth century. The delicate painting on many of these pieces appears, as Ayers suggests, to emulate the refined techniques used by Chinese artists who worked on silk.
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