A SUPERB PAIR OF GRISAILLE, GILT AND SEPIA-DECORATED 'DIANA BATHING' PLATES Qianlong period, circa 1745 Each brilliantly painted in ink color enamels with a central scene of the Goddess Diana bathing in a bucolic landscape setting with steepled town visible in the distance, she sits with one leg draped in the lake before her and attended by winged putti, a band of spearheads at the well and with four mythological references of a hound, peacock, birds with a quiver and a hawk with a spear at the cardinal points and conjoined by rocaille C-scrolls and festoons of flowers, the reverses plain. 9in (23cm) diam (2). Footnotes: 乾隆時期 約1745年 墨彩描金描紅《月神出浴》圖盤一對 Published Cohen & Cohen, Take Two!, Antwerp, 2017, pp. 148-149, no. 61 出版： 倫敦Cohen & Cohen古董行，《Take Two!》，安特衛普，2017年，頁148-149，圖版編號61 The central scene is a frequent subject of 16th-18th century artists allowing them to depict the naked body safely cloaked in mythology. (fig. 1) This pattern was after a print by Claude Augustin Duflos (1700-1786) copying an earlier print by Benôit Audran the Elder (1661-1721) after an original painting by Nicola Fouché (1653-1733). The brilliantly painted ink color enamels are frequently termed grisaille, encre de chine or Jesuit ware. The use of black enamel was in imitation of the drawings and prints that were not colored before being used as sources by Chinese decorators. The attempt to achieve this technology was recorded by d'Entrecolles in 1722. For a discussion of ink color enamels see, Sargent, 2012, pp. 333-4. References: Mezin, 2002, p. 92, no. 73, a plate with this scene but a different border; Hervouet & Bruneau, 1986, no. 13.16, a plate with the same border. This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: ¤ ¤ Without reserve