Schotel – Porselein – “Sense of Smell” charger

A blue and white ‘Sense of Smell’ dish.Kangxi mark and period, ca. 1700.The deep dish with a flat, slightly upturned rim, painted in underglaze blue with a group of Europeans in fashionable dress on a tiled terrace by a pavilion with a classical cornice. The lady seated to the right holds a flower to her face. The girl hands her another from a basket held by a servant, while a man in the background also holds up a flower spray. The ladies’ hair is dressed à la mode Fontanges, and the man wears a long wig. Round the sides in eight arcaded panels is repeated a design of two ladies standing on either side of a plant; one holding a flower spray and the other a fan.This scene illustrates the popular pastime amongst the genteel society of the 17th and 18th Centuries of guessing the name of a flower from its scent. The design is taken from an unidentified print and judging from the hair-styles it probably dates to shortly before 1700, and may have been part of a set of ‘The Senses’.Lit:See Howard and Ayers, China for the West, vol.I, London and New York, 1978, p.78 for a discussion... lees verder bij Catawiki