Plate

[kardinalisimo]

There was some kind of repair. Not a very good job on the reapplied glaze and the touch up on the decoration.
Aside that I am not even sure if it is a Chinese piece. Any clue what that is?
Thanks

[peterp]

Foot rim shape not clearly visible. A picture at angle and/or side view might help.

[kardinalisimo]

Hope These will help.

[peterp]

Depicted is a decoration of the Qianlong period "Mandarin" pattern. Compare with others on the net.
This should be 18th century, but this foot rim does not look like an 18th century Chinese rim.
Also, especially the lady is not as slender as they are usually painted.
Not sure if the hairdo and cap of the man would be right for that period.
Basically, I think this is either some type of Chinoiserie made elsewhere, or it is much later than the decoration indicates.
I would also suggest to check the black lines on whether or not they are printed.

[Stan]

Also the red rocks with the black background is not like anything Chinese that I have seen.

[calder]

Hi kardinalisimo I have had a few pieces of this pattern.
18th Century New Hall cup and saucer.British

The plate is decorated with the Boy with Butterfly (blue trousers) pattern No 421.

[kardinalisimo]

Thanks. I guess it is this one:
www.antiquesforeveryone.co.uk/gallery/item/18th-century-newhall-coffee-cup-saucer-boy-butterfly

That explains why the plate appears soft paste.
Actually, Newhall pieces are described as 'hybrid hard paste'.  Never heard of that before.

[peterp]

A perfect match. Chinoiserie...but I have to warn you, there are even better ones. Some European Chinoiserie is almost undistinguishable from a decoration made in China. However, the bottom/foot rim is usually different. That is one of the reasons that evaluations that are based solely on the decoration are dangerous. Same is valid for some Japanese copies.

[kardinalisimo]

You are right Peter but if not wrong the British pieces are all soft paste porcelain. At least the early ones when they did not know the ingredients. Like this one, you can just feel it, it is different to touch compared to the Chinese hard paste porcelain.
By the way, I cannot remember in details but I think the Chinese did make soft paste pieces. Not sure when, where and why.

[peterp]

No. Chinese have no idea what soft paste porcelain could be. It is a purely European invention.
Basically, Chinese ceramics only differentiate between earthenware and porcelain. They do not even know what stoneware is; this also is originally a definition originating in Europe.

[kardinalisimo]

Here is some info on Chinese 'soft' paste porcelain but they say it differed from the European one.
http://gotheborg.com/glossary/softpaste.shtml

[peterp]

You got it wrong. The Chinese have no idea what these are. These are western concepts with western names. As with stoneware, the Chinese language had not even a word or character for this. Trying to give a concept a name that does not exist in a language is futile. There is character now, possibly introduced from Japanese. But most people (collectors) still do not know what it is, even if it has a name. It took me a long time too to understand it. I'm not sure that I would understand it to some degree, if I was not involved in porcelain restoration.
In Chinese porcelain is just--porcelain--, stoneware is porcelain, hard paste is porcelain, soft paste is porcelain, and bone china is porcelain too. To the Chinese some porcelain bodies may have other clays mixed with kaolin, but they are still called just porcelain, regardless of the clay mix.

Stoneware and soft porcelain are artificial names of artificial things, of western origin. These names basically do not exist in the Chinese culture, etc. Many Chinese even use the term "porcelain" for glazed earthenware. It is all a matter of definition.

As for the definition, I doubt it is useful to apply such an European term to a Chinese ceramic body. The reason is simply that at any one time there were thousands of kilns (kiln locations) which did all mine the clay in their vicinity. When depleted they had to close down. Therefore, there were large numbers of different clay mixes at any one time in use. Even within the same kiln system there may be many different types. Like the Longquan kiln system, for example, spread over a vast area with hundreds of kilns. Many Longquan wares were clearly made using different clays..