Description

This type of bump bottomed dish is based on collection or alms dishes, often in silver or brass which continued as decorative sideboard dishes in maiolica pottery from southern Spain, Italy and then central Europe. Interestingly, this dish is decorated in Chinese Kangxi style and may be imitating dishes made for export to Europe from Jingdezhen but copying European shapes. An illustration of the complex flow of cross-cultural design influences which are particularly strong with the Portuguese and later, the Dutch exploratory trading routes to China and Japan via India.

Models in wood of shapes suitable for the European markets were sent out to Asia for the factories to copy. This ensured a product which would be familiar to the home market, however the decoration would be entirely in the Chinese (or Japanese) manner.