A LARGE FAMILLE ROSE 'DON QUIXOTE' CHARGER Qianlong period, circa 1755-70 The center of the dish and well, painted with an oval roundel depicting the bumbling romantic knight Don Quixote on his horse Rosinante led by his roguish squire, Sancho Panza and watched surreptitiously by two ladies hiding behind a tree, behind a barber flees after having his bowl taken by Don Quixote, all set in a rocky landscape, the everted rim painted with four equally spaced grisaille and gilt landscape and bird cartouches, the reverse plain, the base unglazed. 15 3/8in (39cm) diam Footnotes: 乾隆時期 約1745-50年 粉彩《堂吉訶德》大盤 Published: Cohen & Cohen, Baroque & Roll, Antwerp, 2015, pp. 94-95, no. 60 出版： 倫敦Cohen & Cohen古董行，《Baroque & Roll》，安特衛普，2015年，頁94-95，圖版編號60 The large dish depicts the moment Don Quixote places a barber's bowl on his head in the mistaken belief that it is the legendary 'Helmet of Mambrino'. The scene is based on an imaginative design by Charles-Antoine Coypel (1694-1752) originally for the Gobelins tapestry factory. Images by Coypel were engraved by a number of artists including Louis Surugue, Gerard Vendergucht and Jacob Folkema. (fig. 1) The Vandergucht series of engravings was used for an early English edition published around 1732. This dish is from the third and rarest service ordered in China somewhere between 1755 and 1770. See Michael Cohen, The Magazine Antiques, January 2013, for an article proposing several pieces of exceptional quality and with distinctive enameling made at this particular Chinese enameling workshop, possibly specially commissioned for the English market. This design is one of the most sought after by collectors of European subjects on Chinese export porcelain. It is now thought that three services may have been ordered, the first in 1745 just after the Jacob Folkema or Jan Van der Gucht print was published, the second about 1750 and the third, and rarest, sometime between 1755 and 1770. For further discussion, see Cohen & Cohen, Baroque & Roll, Antwerp, 2015, pp. 94-95, no. 60. In this episode Quixote has encountered a barber who is holding a basin over his head to shelter from the rain (the woman on the left appears to be sheltering herself with her cloak too). With his characteristic ability to conjure up heroic adventures out of the mundane, Quixote has assumed the basin to be the 'Helmet of Mambrino', a legendary possession of a Moorish King, made of pure gold and rendering the wearer invulnerable. It was the goal of many of the Knights of Charlemagne to find it, not dissimilar to King Arthur's Knights searching for the Holy Grail. Quixote commands the astonished barber to give him the helmet and, thinking he is mad, the barber drops it and flees. The story is popular and emblematic of all that Quixote represents. Don Quixote is a hero for any age but especially for ours. He has a huge imagination nurtured by reading many books and his innocence and excitement at the prospect of adventure appears as madness to the 'gray' people around him. He has his own code: an ancient one of morality and honor, the code of Chivalry, and he sets out bravely to rectify the wrongs he encounters. Book One of the novels by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) was published in 1605, written in prison to pay off his debts. Cervantes had a colorful life: as a young man he was servant to a Spanish Cardinal in Rome. He later enlisted with the Spanish Militia and was wounded in the Battle of Lepanto against the Turks. He then went to sea but was captured by Barbary pirates and spent five years as a slave. Ransomed by his family, he returned to Madrid where he acted as a Commissary for the Armada in 1587. Later a tax Collector position took him to Seville. However, he never matched the success of his first book and sadly died penniless on 23 April 1616, coincidentally on the same day that Shakespeare died. References: Howard & Ayers, 1978, p. 345, no. 342, a dinner plate from the earlier service; Lloyd Hyde, 1964, plate XV, p. 15, the later service; Buerdeley, 1962, Cat. 33, the later service: Williamson, 1970, pl. XXIV, a teapot with the five-figure version.