What's the Story?

[Megan17]

I have a plate which I would like to know some more about. Sorry my language is not 'ceramic technical' as I don't know anything about this specialty. I don't even know if this plate is Chinese, as to be honest it's not like any Chinese plate painting I've seen before.

The plate is 20 cms wide, is blue with a pale blue/grey background. It's not what you'd call 'blue and white'. It's heavy....not fine and delicate at all. The painting is primitive looking. My first reaction when I was given the plate was I didn't like it much. The glaze on the front of the plate looks like it has had a bit of wear. There are small holes in the glaze on the front and the back.

The back of the plate has four characters written in what looks like the same colour blue paint as the painting on the front. The circular ridge at the base/back of the plate is rough and sandy.

A small section of the edge of the plate looks like it has been repaired with a resin.

If able I will attach a couple of photos of the plate.

Any informed help would be most appreciated.

[Megan17]

I'm adding three or four more photos. However I can't believe how white the ceramic looks in the photos taken in the daylight. Why is that? I don't think they are representative of the colour of the plate/bowl. The night time photos better represent the actual colour.

There is a scratched/punched character on the base which I assume to be the owner of the bowl at some point.

[Stan]

Im thinking Japanese, the foot has sand on the inside foot rim indicating that it was fired on sand, if it is Japanese it would be early 19th century, I think, the reason I think it is Japanese is because they did a lot of things like this for export and they did large quantity of export and therefor the quality was very low.

[peterp]

Stan, I'm afraid this time you are wrong. This is a very common type of Chinese plate/charger. They have scenic, bird, deer and other decorations. They may or may not have the Chenghua mark, but rarely another one. Often the decoration is very crudely painted.
Look at the top of this search result: tinyurl.com/nw5njlm

The color of the pictures at the bottom of the post is more like the actual items. Usually, it is a grayish white or celadon background. This is not export porcelain. Usually they are about mid-Qing dynasty. :-)

[Stan]

Thank you Peter for correcting me, it was more the mark that made me think Japanese, the Cheghua mark was the most common mark used by the Japanese.