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拍品专文
This lavishly decorated plate belongs to the famous service made for Leake Okeover, Esq. (1702-1765) and wife, Mary Nichol (m. circa 1730, d. 1765), of Ashbourne in the Peak, Derbyshire. The service was delivered in two shipments: the first on 16 January 1740, and the second in 1743. The original invoices for the service survive, sent to "Leake Okeover Esqre." from Joseph Congreve, commander of the East Indiaman Prislowe, with the 1743 invoice reading "...from ye Jerusalem Coffee House, Change Alley, a consignment of fifty plates and four large dishes with your arms". Overall, the invoices record at least 120 plates and 34 dishes, but no pieces of other shapes. The ultimate price for each piece was a little under £1, approximately ten times the typical price for a Chinese export porcelain dish of the period.
The original painted design for the service also survives, inscribed "...a pattern for china plate. Pattern to be returned." As David S. Howard notes, the painted design represents an unusual development in the kinds of instruction provided by European clients to the Chinese manufactories producing export porcelain table services. Where previously, European clients had typically prioritized the armorial elements above decoration, and had been content to provide designs in monochrome, the design painting for the Okeover service includes an elaborately detailed and brilliantly colored scheme for the plate's border. The resulting porcelain is thus not only as vibrant as its painted source, but also remarkably European in style, the flowers at its rim reflecting European designs in place of the Chinese-style flowers typically appearing on export services of the period. Commenting on the final famille rose painting, Howard writes "it is a measure of the Chinese ability to copy that almost every petal, leaf and shimmer of water is exactly reproduced, while the armorials and rim vignettes with initials and crests are perfectly translated. There is no more faultless service of porcelain from China for the European market." For his full discussion of the service, as well as an illustration of the polychrome design, see D.S. Howard, exhibition catalogue, A Tale of Three Cities: Canton, Shanghai & Hong Kong, London, Sotheby's, 1997, pp. 57-58, nos. 53-54. See also D. Howard and J. Ayers, China for the West, London and New York, 1978, II, pp. 413-415, nos. 413, 413a and 413b, where the authors describe the Okeover service as "one of the finest ever made" and reproduce both the design and one of the invoices.
Leake and Mary Okeover died without children, but their estates at Okeover passed to a cousin and remained in the family along with the porcelain, until approximately one hundred pieces were sold at Christie's, London, 3 March 1975, lots 165-84. A soup-plate had previously been given by the family to the British Museum, where it is currently on display (museum no. 1902,0514.1). Further examples include one sold at Christie's, New York, 18 January 2017, lot 404; one from the Peter H. Frelinghuysen, Jr. Collection sold at Christie's, New York, 24 January 2012, lot 25; and one from the collection of Benjamin F. Edwards III sold at Christie's, New York, 26 January 2010, lot 23.
The original painted design for the service also survives, inscribed "...a pattern for china plate. Pattern to be returned." As David S. Howard notes, the painted design represents an unusual development in the kinds of instruction provided by European clients to the Chinese manufactories producing export porcelain table services. Where previously, European clients had typically prioritized the armorial elements above decoration, and had been content to provide designs in monochrome, the design painting for the Okeover service includes an elaborately detailed and brilliantly colored scheme for the plate's border. The resulting porcelain is thus not only as vibrant as its painted source, but also remarkably European in style, the flowers at its rim reflecting European designs in place of the Chinese-style flowers typically appearing on export services of the period. Commenting on the final famille rose painting, Howard writes "it is a measure of the Chinese ability to copy that almost every petal, leaf and shimmer of water is exactly reproduced, while the armorials and rim vignettes with initials and crests are perfectly translated. There is no more faultless service of porcelain from China for the European market." For his full discussion of the service, as well as an illustration of the polychrome design, see D.S. Howard, exhibition catalogue, A Tale of Three Cities: Canton, Shanghai & Hong Kong, London, Sotheby's, 1997, pp. 57-58, nos. 53-54. See also D. Howard and J. Ayers, China for the West, London and New York, 1978, II, pp. 413-415, nos. 413, 413a and 413b, where the authors describe the Okeover service as "one of the finest ever made" and reproduce both the design and one of the invoices.
Leake and Mary Okeover died without children, but their estates at Okeover passed to a cousin and remained in the family along with the porcelain, until approximately one hundred pieces were sold at Christie's, London, 3 March 1975, lots 165-84. A soup-plate had previously been given by the family to the British Museum, where it is currently on display (museum no. 1902,0514.1). Further examples include one sold at Christie's, New York, 18 January 2017, lot 404; one from the Peter H. Frelinghuysen, Jr. Collection sold at Christie's, New York, 24 January 2012, lot 25; and one from the collection of Benjamin F. Edwards III sold at Christie's, New York, 26 January 2010, lot 23.