Plate

Unlike the monochrome tradition, this finely executed plate represents a less restrained aspect of Qing ceramic taste. Nevertheless, a technical virtuosity is apparent in the overglaze enamels which create a richly varied design of butterflies and flowers on a green stipple ground. A work such as this, eggshell thin and of flawless brushwork, is the reward of 2, 500 years of constant effort by the Chinese to create faultless ceramics. It is natural that such exquisite objects often functioned as purely decorative pieces.