Description:
Chinese export porcelain plate decorated with the 'Valentine' pattern in the Famille rose palette in iron red, pink, greens, yellow, blue, black, brown, white, and gilding. The rim has two gilt floral sprays and the arms of Stewart, Lord Blantyre, made for Walter the 8th Baron whose brother, Charles, was in the East India Company. The arms are 'Or, a fess chequy azure and argent surmounted by a bend engrailed and in chief a rose gules'; the crest, 'A dove, in the beak an olive branch, both proper' over a baron's coronet; and the motto, "Sola juvat virtus" or "Virtue alone delights." The 'Valentine' pattern, a combination of pastoral, erotic, and exotic South Seas elements such as a breadfruit tree and coconut palm, was originally found on a 1743 dinner service made in Canton for Commodore George Anson (1697-1762). The 1743 service is said to have been painted in Canton and presented to Anson by the European merchants of Canton for the part his crew of the "Centurion" played in putting out a fire. It was probably designed by then First Lieutenant Piercy Brett (1709-1781), Anson's official artist during his 1740-1744 circumnavigation; many of Brett's drawings were used as the basis for the engravings in "Anson's Voyages", published in 1748. This scene is copied exactly from the 1743 service with the 'Altar of Love' (two flaming hearts on an altar, two doves billing on Cupid's quiver, wreath and side curtain) and 'Absent Master' (tree, wreath, dogs, sheep, shepherd's crook, pipes and hat), all surrounded with two red lines around the inner rim, which were independent motifs, remembrances of home, first combined on the 1743 service. Two other scenes are known to have been used: 2 wolves (or dogs) approaching a cottage; and a cottage, woman spining, man, oxen, and bridge, which is the gilt-edged cartouche on the bottom rim of this plate.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+60.168 |
