Qianlong period circa 1750-60
European or Chinese Market
Diameter of Saucer: 5¾ inches; 14.6cm

Priced in GB pounds sterling 
£35,000
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An extremely fine Chinese painted enamel on copper footed cup and saucer decorated with panels of European mythological subjects on a dense floral ground.

This example belongs to a small group of such pieces of exceptional quality. These were most likely made in the Beijing enamelling workshops rather than in Canton.
The design sources for these pieces are not fully understood though some have now been established and they seem to come from a range of subjects including mythological, pastoral and religious prints, freely combined on the cups and saucers.
A similar bowl and saucer with Cohen & Cohen (2017, Cat 16) has a scene of Moses and the Tablets with the Worship of the Golden Calf, after a print by Matthaus Merian the Elder. Other examples have the Visitation of the Virgin Mary to St Elizabeth, two pastoral fêtes galantes, three scenes of shepherd boys with animals and variations of the three mythogical subjects seen on this example.
The three scenes here are also recorded on Chinese export porcelain in famille rose and en grisaille. The scene of Vertumnus and Pomona  is recorded on two teaservices and the other two scenes are found on plates with some examples combining both of them into a single composition which may be the original image.
The image of Vertumnus and Pomona is taken from a 1732 print, engraved by Edmé Jeaurat (1688-1738) after a painting by his younger brother Étienne Jeaurat (1699-1789), Vertumnus & Pomona. This was copied slightly later  ‘à Paris chez Crépy etc.’ (Jean Crépy c1660-1739) which is reversed and has the correct orientation for the bowl. The reclining figure of Cupid has been changed to a couple of hounds in this example but in other examples the Cupid remains. In the foreground of the print is a small pile of fruit which has inspired the decoration around the foot of the bowl.
The scene on the saucer here is traditionally described as Cybele in a chariot but that may not be accurate. Similar images are recorded in prints showing the goddess Ceres, in a chariot drawn by lions, being offered thanks for the harvest.  The composition is similar to a frontispiece drawn and engraved in 1723 by Jan Caspar Philips (1690–1775) for a 1726 collected edition of the poems of Jeremias de Decker (1609-1666) published in Amsterdam but a precise source has not been found.

References: an identical bowl and saucer is in the Victoria & Albert Museum No. C 39-1962; a similar example is in the Philadephia Museum of Art; a porcelain example is in the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts formerly with Cohen & Cohen.