2-725-705 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Charger, c. 1750. This plate demonstrates the commercial exchange of products—in this case prints and porcelain—between Europe and Asia in the 1700s. Here, a Chinese porcelain factory adapted a French print to decorate a dish for the European market. It depicts a fable by Jean de La Fontaine in which a barrel-maker’s wife dallies with a lover while her husband is working.