A Group of Seven Chinese Export Famille-Rose 'Pompadour' Pattern Plates, Qing Dynasty, Qianlong Period, Circa 1745 | 清乾隆 約1745年 粉彩花卉圖盤一組七件

Sale Maîtres Couturier-Nicolay, Paris Hôtel Drouot, November 28, 1973;

Pescheteau-Badin, Paris, June 13, 2023, lot 53;

Where acquired by the present collector.

Long associated with Madame de Pompadour, the pattern incorporates fish (poisson), and allusion to her maiden name, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson. The crowned eagle and fish vignettes were traditionally interpreted as reference to Pompadour and Louis XV, giving rise to the pattern's enduring association with the royal favorite. This attribution, however, has since been largely discredited, as such an over reference to their comparatively modest origins would presumably have been unappealing to Pompadour. 

See David Howard and John Ayers, China for the West, Vol. II, no. 449, where the authors discuss the pattern's possible origins and suggest that the service may instead have been commissioned in a spirit of "ribald patriotism in bad taste," perhaps by a wealthy member of the French court or a member of the Poisson family.  

A set of sixteen plates of the same size, formerly in the collection of the Greentree Foundation from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney, of this same pattern were sold in these rooms May 18, 2004, lot 62, as well as an assembled pair of plates, formerly in the Collection of Kenneth S. Battye, were sold in these rooms January 15, 2004, lot 70.