Handpainted Plates

Hand painted porcelain plate A, 8.375 inches (21.2 cm)

Today I am sharing two unique hand painted Asian porcelain plates from my collection.  The first plate, (above) is exquisitely painted, with hundreds of fine tiny brush strokes, and hundreds of raised white bumps where the white background shows through.  When I hold it I feel like I am holding a masterpiece from a time gone by.  I run my hands over the bumps with guilty pleasure, because if this piece of art were in a museum I would never be able to stroke it or even touch it.  The plate is fragile, impossible to reproduce, and it's mine to hold. (I am a tactile person as well as visual - I want to touch items I find visually beautiful). 

Hand painted porcelain plate A

Maybe the blog community could help me --- I would love to know if this plate is Japanese or Chinese (or other).  The photo mosaic shows the "signature" from the back of the plate. I don't even know which way is up or down on this signature.  If anyone could care to enlighten me, I would appreciate it - maybe you or a friend can read either Japanese or Chinese...?? 

Hand painted porcelain plate B, 8.375 inches (21.2 cm)

The second plate (above) is signed the same way as the first plate, but the artwork is very different.  Both plates have intensely tiny and thin strokes precisely laid down, with an oriental feel.  Both porcelain plates are 8.375 inch (21.2 cm) across. 

Plate B, detail of brush strokes in tree

I know that the plates are porcelain because porcelain is translucent when held up to the light.  The porcelain is fragile - there is a small crack in both plates, in plate 1 the crack goes through the top flying bird.  That didn't stop me from buying the plates.  I have many cracked and chipped items that I cherish anyway, and sometimes the chip or crack is the reason I am able to afford the item I am looking at.  But often a beautiful item will be bypassed by others because the style isn't fashionable or contemporary, or because people don't know what to do with an odd miscellaneous plate.  I'm happy to take home these pieces, and protect them for several more years (and hopefully decades).  I think of my neglected and unwanted treasures as my orphans.  I purchased both of these wonderful plates with soaring songbirds at an estate sale - for a song.

Plate B, brushstroke detail. The bird is .75 inches across.
What kind of brush did the artist use to paint that? 

Click on the images to see them enlarged. 


[OK, skip this part unless you are really interested.]  Here is a detailed description of the plate A, my favorite.  - A thin black border less then .25 inches thick has golden gilt lines decorating it.  Inside this border, the next inch on the rim of the plate has over 40 delicate light blue 5 petaled flowers and many more buds and petals making up a blue ground of airy flowers.  Each of these light blue flowers has a ring of about 20 really small dark blue dots around the center section of tiny lines.  (The artist missed the dark dots in one of the flowers - I noticed it as I was counting the flowers.)  Where the white porcelain shows through, there are raised white dots of paint - about 25 dots in a quarter of an inch, and yet none of the dots touch.  I know I would have a hard time painting that precisely.  Delicate sage foliage spreads from the blue in towards the center of the plate, and among the foliage pastel pink and yellow flowers emerge.  These plants and flowers are on a white background, with more of those dots, but the white dots here show more wear.  The center of the plate has an abstract circle made up of the blue flower petals in the rim, but here arranged in a mandala or kaleidoscope fashion.  And three little brush stoke birds nestle in the foliage, or fly in the white dotted air.

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Austrian Plate

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Rosenthal

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Easter Hutch

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