Pair of fountains; Company of the Indies, China, 18th century.

Pair of sources; Company of the Indies, China, eighteenth century.
Porcelain.
Measurements: 37 x 45 cm (x2).
Pair of porcelain trays with pink family enamels, part of a tableware with the coat of arms of the Carr families. Qing dynasty, Qianlong period, for export, British East India Company. The East India Company was a generic term for companies that managed trade between a European metropolis and its colonies. The Chinese manufacturers soon understood that Europeans were not experts in porcelain and produced a vulgar export porcelain, even with flaws, but which in the eyes of Westerners turned out to be authentic works of art. Once the trade was regularly organized, the India Companies supplied Chinese artists with European models, both for forms and decoration. Throughout the 18th century the blue and white series persisted, but of inferior quality, which was then called Nanjing porcelain.