Blue and white porcelain box

[Adriano]

I would like to have an opinion on this porcelain box.
My considerations are:
. It has a typical Chinese landscape
. It has an apocryphal Qianlong mark reported in the Gotheborg site as first half of 20th century
. There are some rust spots in particular on the cover
. The internal site and bottom look quite new
I wonder if it is hand painted or printed, and if it is first or second half of 20th century.
Thanks a lot.

[Stan]

the design is transferred, I believe this is from the 80's 20th century.

[Adriano]

Thank you Stan.
I thought it was a bit older for the stains of rust, but if transferred, it is recent.

[Stan]

Hi Adriano, one of the easiest ways to spot printed or transfer ware is to follow the band on the item, I am not sure what the band is called on the top out side of the box, so I am going to call it a weave band, look at the corners and see where they meet up, something hand drawn would not be this way, the corners would all line up, here they do not, this is typical of something printed, there is 99% of the time an odd area that just dose not look right for something hand drawn and then all the blue is usually one color that is consistent from start to finish, where as hand drawn would be darker from start and gradually get lighter as the stroke progresses, but in a lot of today's printed items they are hand painting over the lines to make it look hand drawn and some of these are really hard to spot, you need a 10X loop or stronger to tell, but the bands are easier to spot even if they go over it with a brush.

[Adriano]

Hi Stan, your considerations are very useful to me.
Thanks again.

[Adriano]

I would like to ask a question to Stan.
I read on Gotheborg site that Chinese porcelain transfer prints seems to date to the first decades of the 20th century. The method seems to have been abandoned before WWII.
As we realized that this piece is transfer printed, it should be first half of 20th century, instead of 80?s.
This can explain the rust stains on the cover.
What do you think Stan?
Thank you.

[Stan]

I do not think that transfer ware was practiced much in the chinese porcelain, in the early republic, and republic periods, they still held to traditional painting and decoration, It was not until mid 20th century that the Chinese put transfer printed design into production not like the Japanese that was using transfer methodes clear into the 19th century, but now the chinese are still doing printed porcelain to day,

[Stan]

BTW the mark is not centered and the bottom is to white to be any older in my opinion.

[peterp]

Stan is right. I would recommend not to waste your time with trying to prove it is antique. It has little collecting value. And, many hand-painted items have much better quality than this one, even recent ones. That is probably the reason that transfers never really got popular. They are cheap but of inferior quality, generally. European and Japanese transfers are much better.

[peterp]

To someone just starting out collecting Chinese items I would recommend to first try to get early republic items. This will get you experience with real antiques, while chances to get authentic ones at a reasonable price are still fairly good.

[Adriano]

Thank you Peter and Stan for your attention.
I am asking questions just to learn the differencies in period and quality.

Regards,
Adriano