1-621-016 - The Museum of East Asian Art/Heritage Images

Birthday plate, late Kangxi period, Qing dynasty, China, 1700-1722. A plate with two anhua four-clawed dragons amid stylised clouds on either side of an anhua 'shou' (long life) medallion with narrow anhua band of classic scroll surrounding. The cavetto has formal anhua scrolling fleur de lys decoration. The rim has continuous decoration of small bats in rouge de fer overglaze enamel. The base has a six character underglaze blue mark of Chenghua in kaishu script in an underglaze blue double circle. This type of plate with its long life connotations (bats and shou character) was traditionally given as part of the celebrations of the 70th birthday, a particularly important birthday in Chinese culture.