A Kangxi Blue and White Porcelain Plate c.1690-1710. The central design is of two Ladies, or ‘Long Eliza` (Lange Lyzen in Dutch), in a garden landscape, the scene is set in a garden. An elegant lady stands holding a small, branched twig, perhaps acacia, the two other ladies stand nearby with a light (?) over her shoulder. This plate is unusual in that the design fills the plate, stopping just short of the rim, it is far more common to have a complex border, rather than with this plate, a simple single line, just before the rim. This very shallow plate is based on European metal and ceramic shapes. Many Dutch late 17th century and early 18th century delftware plates and dishes are of this shape or versions of it. Some of the delftware dishes have the design across the surface of the plate, like the present example. These designs moved to and from East to West and back again, this makes sorting out which design elements came first, rather difficult.   Kangxi blue and white porcelain figure decorated plates of this type were very popular in Holland, where the elegant Chinese ladies were referred to as Lange Lyzen. The shape, size and tones of blue employed, as well as the white pearly glaze, are very similar to the well-known `Rotterdam Riot` plates which can be dated to c.1692-1695. Unlike the political subject of the Rotterdam Riot plates, figures as a subject matter was not ephemeral. Therefore, it is likely the figure decorated plates were made over a longer period, this is further confirmed by the large extant number known. It is certain that the production must have overlapped as the two types are very similar in every way except the central design. Kangxi blue and white export porcelain object are sometimes found with the six-character mark of the emperor Kangxi (1662-1722) to the base. These none-imperial reign marks are referred to as minyao in Chinese, denoting them as `popular wares` not destined for court use. However, the majority of the marked pieces bare the mark of earlier Ming dynasty emperors, some are Jiajing (1522-1566), occasionally Wanli (1573-1620) but by far the most encountered marks are those of Chenghua (1465-1487). David Howard in `The Choice of the Private Trader` (David S. Howard, Zwemmer, 1994) notes that "The Chenghua mark .... was not intended as a forgery, but rather as a compliment to the quality of the piece and to replace the mark of Kangxi who had forbidden the use of his name on porcelain made for export after 1682; a ban which nominally remained in force until the late 19th century". It appears this ban was not enforced, or if it was only partly enforced, as we have had many Kangxi export pieces made after this date (1682) that bare the six-character Kangxi mark. It is worth noting that many 19th century copies of Kangxi blue and white porcelain bare a four-character Kangxi mark, something you do not on the original, all Kangxi marks on porcelain of the period were of six-character form. See below for more photographs and references.