An 18th Century Chinese White Enamelled Teabowl and Saucer, with Additional James Giles Enamels.

A London Decorated Chinese Export Porcelain Teabowl and Saucer, Qianlong Period c.1750-1760. The white enamel is Chinese tea bowl and saucer, from the collection of from the collection of Dr. Bernard Watney (1922-1998), has polychrome enamelled decoration added in London between c.1755-1765. The Chinese Export Porcelain teabowl was painted in London, probably in the James Giles workshop. It is unusual to have Chinese decoration with James Giles decoration, I’m sure Bernard Watney had this in his collection for that reason. It is painted with a large sprig of English flowers, a butterfly, caterpillar and further scattered flowers. This type of English enamel decoration on Chinese export porcelain should be seen in a different way to what is referred to as `over-decorated` or `clobbered` porcelain. Those terms refer to Chinese porcelain that was imported into Europe as finished articles but were either too plain for merchants to sell or their profits could be enhanced by adding enamels over the existing Chinese decoration. The present example was plain white when it arrived in England, it would not have been saleable and so no merchant would have ordered it to retail. However, James Giles must have ordered a lot of white porcelain specifically for decoration at his workshop in London. The shapes ordered were the lasted fashion in Europe as was the decoration he added. To my mind this makes these objects separate and distinct from other Chinese porcelain, China only provided the blank `canvas` and even that was of a form dictated to by Europe. For this reason these objects would primarily be seen as English, they would have been totally alien to the Chinese.

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