Description:
Chinese export painted enamel plate decorated in green, blue, yellow, pink, purple, orange, and brown. The well has a woman with long curly hair and a naked, winged child in her lap seated next to a large dragon-painted vase, and a second older winged child with a long sash around his waist pointing a long horn or staff over his right shoulder and a small spotted dog at this feet. The exact meaning of this scene remains unknown, but the mother figure could be Guanyin, the Chinese Buddhist deity of compassion and mercy. Because of her similarity to the appearance of the Virgin Mary, Guanyin became a popular image among Western merchants. Howard and Ayers notes that in the early painted enamels: "The principal figures and parts of composition seem to derive from European prints which are mainly of classical or religious subjects and the naked, putti-like children frequently occur." The figures are surrounded by rockwork and foliage with three distant peaks in blue in the background. The rim has a wide yellow-ground border of scrolling floral sprays and 9 pink bats, a common motif in Chinese ceramics of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). The Chinese word for bat is pronounced "fu," a homophone for "blessings" or "good fortune." Traditionally associated with long life, white bats were dried and eaten. The underside of the rim has 3 blue dragons alternating with 3 pink phoenix rondels. The dragon, one of the oldest symbols in Chinese mythology, represents several themes relating to power: the emperor, rain or water, and energy. The dragon also acts as an emissary or guardian figure who bears deities through the skies and guards the entrance to paradise in the Kun Lun mountains. The center base has a large yellow gourd surrounded by floral sprays.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+60.185 |
