Boxed set of sauce or condiment dishes???

[heavenguy]

Hello guys,

I bought my last items yesterday on the estate and this caught my eye.

It looks like a set of small dishes. The box looks old and most of the lid cover painting has gone for good. The box is dovetail jointed with a few nails on top. The wood already has some natural shrinking.

The dishes at my opinion look Chinese because of the bamboo and the butterflies. They don't have a mark.

I don't know if that type of bottom is correct for an 19th century piece.

Any information provided will be of much help.

[heavenguy]

more pics

[heavenguy]

Last pic, thank you in advance.

[peterp]

Late Qing to early republic. Congratulation, it is difficult to find a complete set, and yours has even the box.

[Stan]

I agree with Peter, the only think that has me baffled is the bright colored gold out line.

[carlyoung]

I agree Stan , That's what was holding me back from saying Guangxu/republic at the start , but if you think about it they still have the original box and if hardly used this would have preserved them nicely .

[peterp]

Right Stan, I have been considering this too, but this type of gilt started late in the Qing dynasty, as far as I know. I believe it was available already at the end of the Guangxu reign or during the Xuantong reign. The hand-painted gilt lines look a bit uneven in width compared to those very straight ones used in the republic period. I think this is because the application method was different later. The colors are still those older ones, otherwise. BTW, if only the gilt lines on top are abraded, but the interior ones not, they may have been repainted. There is no reason that only the edge and interior colors show usage, but those lines not at all.
Anyway, we use the late Qing/early republic dating when it is difficult to be sure which, and/or it could be both. Saying early 20th century would be on the safer side though...

[heavenguy]

Thank you guys. I know that most of the old couples Oriental collection was saved inside boxes since they really had tons of pieces. But as Peterp suggests, the middle lines do seem suspicious. I guess they retouch them at some point since they have wear but not as the top lines. also they don't have any chips but a couple of pieces have like a white paste on them suggesting they kind of repair a couple of pieces or they try to cover the Kiln flaws.

This must have been done in the place the buy this pieces from since I seen all the pieces they collected and they never tried to repair any of the other ones.

Anyways. Thank you all for your nice observations.

[GerryG]

Hi, I obtained a set of these sweetmeat dishes some time back. Each decorated with one of the eight immortals and also with the gilded edge. They also had that thick opaque milky white glaze.  One had a faint red stamp to its unglazed base which I seem to remember dating to around the 1930s/1940s. I guess antique of the future especially if you have a complete boxed set.

[heavenguy]

Thank you Gerry for your nice input.