Daoguang period 1841-1850
English Market
Diameter: 9¾ inches; 24.8cm

Priced in GB pounds sterling 
£5,000
This item is located in the UK. Shipping from there is at the buyer's expense.

Provenance: a private Swedish collector and member of the Swedish Oriental Ceramics Society, who started to collect in the early 1980's.

A fine and rare Chinese porcelain dinner plate decorated in famille rose enamels with a central portrait representing the Daoguang Emperor seated on a chair, the rim with four foliate swags.

This unusual plate appears to take its design from an engraving by Charles Hullmandel (1789-1850) for Samuel Kidd’s book China, or Illustrations of the Philosophy, Government, and Literature of the Chinese, London, 1841.

Samuel Kidd (1799-1843) was an English missionary who served in Malacca in the 1820s and was later appointed professor of Chinese at University College, London, from 1837-42.

Kidd’s book on China was published during the First Opium War of 1838-42.  At the time the British were not familiar with the appearance of the Daoguang Emperor so Kidd included this image in his book, which became popular as a result. Although it has since been shown to be a more generic image, produced as Chinese pith paintings for visitors in Canton that did not really resemble the Emperor, it was produced here on porcelain to appeal to the same market.