A massive Chinese famille verte “Stanislaw pattern” charger. Kangxi period.

Painted in the famille verte palette and gilt with a jardiniere of peonies, chrysanthemums, pine and others flowers in a fenced garden to the center, the border with shaped panels of birds and butterflies in flowering gardens on underglazed-blue grounds reserved with chysanthemum sprays and scrolling foliage, the underside with flowering branches and panels of fish amongst aquatic weeds on a diaper ground.

Provenance

From a private collection of the Southwest of France

Related works

Our charger is one of the biggest chargers known. This pattern can be found in the European princely collections, including Augustus The Strong, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, housed in the Zwinger, Dresden.

A smaller dish (11.22 in./28 cm), from the Mottahedeh Collection, is published by David Howard and John Ayers in “China for the West. Chinese Porcelain and other Decorative Arts for Export illustrated from the Mottahedeh Collection (I, pp. 144-145, no. 126).

A smaller dish (34.4 cm), from the collection of August the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, is in the collection of the Boymans Van Beuningen Museum (Rotterdam, inv. no. A 2417).

A smaller dish (30.5 cm) is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New-York (from the Hans Syz Collection, Gift of Stephan B. Syz and John D. Syz, 1995, access number 1995.268.35).

A smaller dish (13.38 in./34 cm) is in the Collezione Scalabrino and illustrated by Francesco Morena in “La collezione Scalabrino, porcellanae orientale e mailloche europee” (p. 44, no. 54).

A smaller dish is depicted in the catalogue “Porzellane und Waffen aus den Kgl. Sächsischen Sammlungen Dresden” lot 289 (1919), from the collection of the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, Augustus the Strong (1670-1733).

For another smaller dish (49 cm/19.29 in.), see Christie’s London, Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, 14 june 2001, lot 554.

One example, of a similar dimension (54 cm), is in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum of London (accession number C.1474-1910).

One example, of a similar dimension (54 cm), from the Dresden Porcelain Collection, was published by Walter Bondy (Kangsi-Epoch Der Chinesesischen Porzellankunst, Munich, 1923, no. 157)

A pair of similar dimension of our (54 cm) is on the private market in London ; Another one is on the private market in Paris. A pair of large dishes (30.5 cm/12 in.), is also on the private market in London.

Metropolitan Museum of New-York (access number 1995.268.35)

Notice

This design made for the Continental market was inspired by Japanese export ceramics from the 17th century (Imari Kinrandé). The extensive use of gilding and the dark blue and red enamels illustrate the adoption of the Japanese Imari style in Chinese wares. This style became popular in Europe in the mid-seventeenth century, when warfare in China disrupted the kilns at Jingdezhen. Chinese potters incorporated the Imari style in their repertory to attract the lucrative European market.

This famous design was copied in Belvedere Warsaw Faience in 1776, most notably in later services for the Polish King Stanislaw II or for Sultan Abdul Hamid I of Turkey, which has consequently resulted in this design being known as the “Stanislaw” pattern. A plate from the “Poniatowski service” is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New-York.

This historical pattern became famous and the Venetian Cozzi factory copied it around 1770. Bayeux (Metropolitan Museum of NYC, access number 1995.268.39) and Samson copied it as well at the end of the 19th century (see Christie’s, Asian Decorative Arts, 14 february 2012, London, lot 224).