This page is only one of many thousands of Gotheborg.com Help and Information Pages, offering specialized knowledge on Chinese and Japanese Porcelain, including a Glossary, Q&A, Chinese and Japanese Porcelain Marks, Chinese Porcelain Exhibition and Excavation reports etc. For personal help and far more information, join our Discussion Board or use 'Ask a Question' for quick email consultations. For full text and better navigation, use a full-screen device rather than a mobile phone, that offers only limited content.
I was recently offered this beautiful big plate (39 cm) and was told it should be a Kangxi, Yongzheng or Qianlong copy of Ming. Do you agree with that? It is in perfect condition. The asked price is USD $ 1,500. Thank you very much in advance.
Thank you for sending me the picture. First of all I should tell that the large and no doubt nice dish, is a total fake. It is always interesting to be up-dated with the latest efforts of the porcelain fakers.
What makes this dish difficult to spot as a fake for the beginning collector and many, many "experts" too - is that there are so many features that looks "right" on this.
Of course we need to be humble and accept that there are things we have not seen before, but in this case we have, just that all features that occur on this dish are picked up from different periods. This is probably what the seller see too, which is why he tells it is a "Kangxi, Yongzheng or Qianlong copy of Ming".
Just for one thing the center decoration seems to be a pagoda with some trees in the back ground. This seems to me to be a typical export pattern, probably developed over some decades in cooperation with European porcelain potteries like Spode, and this decoration never occur on dishes made for the Chinese market.
The remaining features is a concoction of decorative motives and symbols from Wanli period under Ming (The branches under the rim), the Ruyi scepter heads (Kangxi) and the flowers next to them (Qianlong c. 1760) and so on. It is actually quite interesting to sit and try to figure out where the decorative items comes from. The grit under the foot rim for one thing, is late Ming, Tianqi, to Early Qing, Chongzheng period and also occurring on so called Swatow porcelain.
However, it is so good that I can't rule it out entirely just based on a picture. It need to be checked up by hand where all things like glaze, paste etc can be taken into consideration.
I would still advice against a buy though.
Thank you for your interest.
Best regards,
Jan-Erik Nilsson
Back to Gotheborg.com Home Page