246.
AN ‘IMARI’ DISH
Qing dynasty, Yongzheng period
24 cm diam
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 5313.
Idyllic scenes like the one painted on this dish – with a man, his wife and son in a garden near their house – were very appreciated in Europe in the eighteenth century, the Age of Enlighment, a period in which – despite the growing knowledge about Far Eastern cultures – intellectuals and philosophers such as Voltaire transmitted a misleading idea of China as a peaceful and productive country in opposition to the bad government which characterised, according to them, Europe at that time.
A dish with a related decoration is in the Princessehof Museum, Leeuwarden (inv. OKS 1998-056).
