A famille rose European subject tea bowl. China, Qianlong

The tea bowl and saucer decorated in the famille rose palette, the scene after the print “Les moissonneurs”, an opéra comique by Charles Simon Favart (1710- 1792) and composer Egidio Romualdo Duni (1708-1775). A short suite of prints was produced by Charles Eisen to illustrate the story – but were also received as a simple suite of genre images in the pastoral style.

COUNTRY : China
PERIOD : Qianlong (1735-1795)
MATERIAL : Porcelain
SIZE : 12 cm
REFERENCE : E576
PROVENANCE : The Angelo Caldas Collection (Sotheby’s London, Fine Chinese Export Porcelain from the collection of Angelo Castelo Branco Cerqueira Caldas, 8 may 1990, lot 181
STATUT : sold
Additonal informations :

The suite of six drawings by Charles Dominique Joseph Eisen (1720-1778) were published in 1768 at Chez Petit, rue du petit Pont, Paris, with images in small ovals with verses from the opera underneath, some engraved by Pierre Adrien Le Beau (1748- 1810) and at least one by Emmanuel Jean Nepomucène de Ghendt (1738-1815) who was in Paris from 1766 and engraved many book illustrations after Eisen. The engravings appear to be rare and an edition of the text with them has not been located, so they were probably published and sold independently. Of the six prints, four are found on Chinese famille rose teaservices from the 1770s with varying borders.

We thanks Will Motley for the communication of these elements.