Early 19th C Chinese Porcelain Bowl

This bowl was made in southern China at a time when porcelain was travelling vast distances — ordered by European merchants, painted by hand in Canton workshops, and shipped across oceans to end up on Western tables. The figures, garden scenes and patterned borders are part of that shared visual language of export porcelain: recognisably Chinese, but designed to feel familiar and decorative to buyers far from home.
 
The painting is detailed without being fussy — soft famille rose colours, iron red accents, and fine line work that shows the hand of the decorator rather than a rigid template. Turn it over and you see the quieter signs of how it was made: a gently uneven foot, traces of kiln grit, small irregularities that come with workshop production rather than court perfection.
 
What we like most is that sense of movement and exchange — an object made to travel, to be used, and to sit comfortably in someone’s everyday life. It’s decorative, but not precious; historical, but not remote. The kind of piece that still works just as well holding fruit or sitting open on a shelf, doing what it’s always done.
 
Condition: Good - minor wear to the foot and a hairline (barely there) crack
Size: W 15.5cm x H 8cm