A RARE BLUE AND WHITE 'DELFTWARE-STYLE' PLATE Kangxi period, circa 1720 The rare plate imitating a Dutch Delft dish of the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century and painted in a pleasing range of cobalt-blue washes and penciled lines with a lotus atop a vase shaped stand at the center and surrounded by five leafy cartouches at the border that divide five bowls with fruit or petals of flowers that are supported on curling swags that suspend to the cavetto, the reverse with two cursory leafy sprays. 8 1/4in (21cm) diam Footnotes: 康熙時期 約1720年 青花《代爾夫特風格》瓶花紋盤 Published Cohen & Cohen, The Elephant in the Room, Antwerp, 2019, pp. 4-5, no. 1 出版： 倫敦Cohen & Cohen古董行，《The Elephant in the Room》，安特衛普，2019年，頁4-5，圖版編號1 This interesting design closely refers to the style of Dutch delft dishes and plates of this period, notably in the thick, apparently rather wet two-tone blue washes very characteristic of the effect created by Delft painters on absorbent opaque white ('tin-glazed') surfaces. Although it is exceptionally unusual to imitate a fairly functional coarse Dutch pottery dish in this expensive way in China, comparable examples of copying Delft originals in Jingdezhen are exemplified above all by the remarkable multi-tiered 'tulip holders' made at around the same date. It has even been suggested that the present plate was copied directly from a Delft example taken to Canton and transported to Jingdezhen, for a very particular reason which justified the considerable expense. An amusing Chinese gift for the owner of a newly opened Delft pottery kiln copying his first products? References: Howard & Ayers, 1978, p. 84, a blue and white Chinese plate after a Delft original; Howard, 1994, p. 47, another such plate. This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: ¤ ¤ Without reserve