A RARE FAMILLE ROSE PRONK-DESIGN 'FOUR DOCTORS' VISIT' PLATE Qianlong period, circa 1740 Boldly enameled in colors at the center with three somewhat 'chinoiserie' figures seated in long robes at a low table bearing a large blue and white lobed-rim dish possibly of 'kraak' inspiration, a fourth figure gesticulating beneath a slender branch of overhanging blossom behind them and a back-facing peacock perched on a fence at their right side, the broad rim with a strikingly original design of six cartouches of exotic fish reserved on a cell-pattern ground. 9in (23cm) diam Footnotes: 乾隆時期 約1740年 粉彩普龍克《四學士之訪》圖盤 The scene on this plate is known as 'The Doctor's Visit to the Emperor' and is after an identified design by the Dutch artist Cornelis Pronk. It was the second drawing (of four) which the Dutch East India Company (VOC) commissioned from Cornelis Pronk in 1735, and, like the others, it portrays a very fanciful view of life in China. Unrealistic details include the fact the table is of European design and the dish on it is of in old-fashioned 'kraak' style, a type that was exported to the West in the late 16th and 17th centuries and would not ever been seen, much less used, by the 'Emperor' or anyone at Court in Beijing. The parrot often symbolized a prostitute or painted courtesan in Chinese art, so that would have been highly inappropriate next to an alleged 'Emperor', or perhaps even a doctor. The design may have been inspired by a design on a Ming jar fairly readily available to Pronk's design team in Amsterdam, which in reality was depicting the very Chinese subject of three Daoist 'star-gods' in a cave playing chess or a related Chinese board game like Weiqi. Another source was perhaps the Chinese woodblock print used for the design on a late Ming blue and white bowl depicting the poet Su Dongpo (on a boat) seated at a table with two drinking companions, with an inscription that quotes from the famous Song dynasty poem 'Ode to the Red Cliffs' about catching fish. The design arrived in Canton in 1737 and presented the supercargoes responsible for placing the porcelain order with a commercial problem they first identified with commissioning the first Pronk design to be painted on porcelain at Jingdezhen. Both of Pronk's watercolor designs were highly detailed, and therefore very expensive to produce, so the supercargoes only dared to place a small order. References: Jörg, 1980, pp. 26-7, for various ceramic items bearing this famous design; Howard & Ayers, 1978, p. 294, for a discussion about Pronk designs; Pietsch, TW (ed.) 1995, who discusses the Fallours fish drawings in Renard's 'Poissons' etc; Cohen & Cohen, 2014-B, pp. 80-81, no. 46, a large charger; Cohen & Cohen, The Golden Gate Collection, Antwerp, 2018, pp. 52-53, no. 41, for another plate; Cohen & Cohen, 1999, p. 35, for a pair of famille rose cisterns with this design; Cohen & Cohen, 2008, for a spectacular cistern and basin and with an with identification of many of the fish; and Wirgin 1998, p. 177, a basin with three different fish inside, unusually enameled in the Chinese Imari palette. This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: ¤ ¤ Without reserve