A FAMILLE ROSE 'CHRYSANTHEMUMS, PEONY, AND ROSES' DISH, ENGRAVED JOHANNEUM MARK N=176, YONGZHENG

A FAMILLE ROSE 'CHRYSANTHEMUMS, PEONY, AND ROSES' DISH, ENGRAVED JOHANNEUM MARK N=176, YONGZHENG PERIOD

China, 1722-1735. Delicately potted with shallow rounded sides supported on a short tapered foot, the interior finely decorated with tangled stems of peony, rose, and chrysanthemum twisting upwards and across, the blooms in delicate shades of pink and yellow, the leaves rendered turquoise and green, the rose thorns picked out in pink, all below the café-au-lait rim.

Provenance: The Royal Collections of Saxony, Japanese Palace, Dresden. Collection of Augustus II ('The Strong') (1670-1733), King of Poland and Elector of Saxony (the base with the Johanneum mark 'N=176 I'). August Rex or Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony (1670-1733), was an avid collector of Chinese and Japanese porcelains for which he built the Johanneum in Dresden, a building that became known as the Japanese Palace. The porcelain dish bear marks referring to an inventory begun in 1721.
Condition: Very good condition with minor wear and firing irregularities including a small glaze flaw to the rim and a short glaze line only visible under strong blue light. The enamels are very well preserved with only few minute flakes.

Weight: 367 g
Dimensions: Diameter 22.2 cm

The so-called Johanneum mark on this dish was used for porcelains from the collection of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony (1670-1733). Porcelains from the old Collection, an inventory of which was started in 1721, bear these engraved marks, which were colored black, of numbers and letters corresponding to the particular class of porcelain, i.e. an 'H' written sideways (as seen on the present dish), denoting 'green Chinese'. As noted in Ströber, 2001, p. 76, the present dish was presumably acquired by Augustus the Strong in 1727 as contemporary porcelain. The 1779 inventory of the Japanese Palace lists 'A Service painted with red and colored flowers comprising a hundred pieces large and small pieces… No. 176.' Cassidy-Geiger, 2008, p. 702. In 1860, Queen Victoria made a gift of a similar dish to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Literature comparison:
Compare a closely related famille rose dish, also with a Johanneum mark, dated c. 1725, 34.7 cm diameter, in the Art Institute of Chicago, reference number 2003.51.12. Compare a closely related famille rose dish, dated c. 1730, also with a Johanneum mark, 34.3 cm diameter, in the Victoria & Albert Museum, reference number CIRC.684-1931. Compare a related famille rose dish with the same inventory number in the Dresden Porcelain Collection, illustrated by Eva Ströber, La maladie de porcelaine… Ostasiatisches Porzellan aus der Sammlung Augusts des Starken, 2001, p. 76, no. 31. Compare a related smaller famille rose dish with the same Johanneum mark from the Mottahedeh Collection, illustrated by David Howard and John Ayers, China for the West, London and New York, 1978, p. 148, no. 128, where the authors note that the presence of a Johanneum mark "almost certainly indicates that the piece entered the collection before the death of King Augustus in 1733”.

Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Bonhams London, 16 May 2024, lot 40
Price: GBP 16,640 or approx. EUR 21,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A famille rose 'peony and chrysanthemum' dish, Yongzheng
Expert remark: Compare the closely related decoration, composition, motifs, Johanneum mark, and size (22.5 cm).