A fine pair of small Imperial saucer dishes painted in famille rose enamels (yangcai) in the Yongzheng style with prunus flowers and roses and two bees painted en grisailles on the exterior.  The flowering branches spread up from the foot and over the sides onto the cavetto and interior of the dishes where further prunus blossoms on branches frame canes displaying a rose bud and a fully opened blossom.  This visual technique, first seen in the Yongzheng period, is known as Guozhihua.  The rose petals are in shades of pink with yellow accents, the foliage in various shades of green.  Two further bees en grisailles hover above the foliage.  On the bases painted in iron red in zhuanshu script is the mark and period of the Daoguang Emperor.  An identical pair from the Sun Yingzhou Collection is now in the Palace Museum.
Qing Dynasty, Daoguang Period (1821-1850)
Diameter:  4 7/8" (12.4cm)
Condition:  On the edge of one dish a small nick occurring during manufacture and filled in with the clear glaze.
Reference:  See Sun Yingzhou de Taoci Shijie (The Sun Yingzhou Collection of Chinese Ceramics), Beijing, 2003, page 315, Plate 195.
Please refer to item #FR-503 when inquiring.