Master Art

Qianlong period
Spanish-Mexican Market

A Chinese export porcelain saucer dish brightly enamelled in famille rose with a double headed eagle motif surrounded by vases of flowers and a blue border to the rim.

The double headed eagle shown here is a symbol of St Augustine, who was known as ‘the Hipona Eagle’, suggesting that this dish was made for a Spanish Augustinian order based in Mexico, though others were based in Macao, the Philippines and India.

References: Howard 1994, p231, a Wanli jar with the eagle; Castro 1988, p29, a similar blue jar; there is similar famille rose dish in the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.