A LARGE CHINESE-REVIVAL BLUE AND WHITE POTTERY CHARGER
India, 19th century

Of shallow rounded shape, resting on a short circular foot, the interior decorated with a central roundel painted in cobalt blue against white ground, filled with Chinese-inspired motifs such as pagodas, rocky mountains with Oriental pine trees, and small wooden boats crossing a river, the band below the rim with a lotus pond filled with storks resting on flowers and other vegetal motifs, the exterior with peaches and foliage, 44cm diam.

Provenance: excavated at an archaeological site in Bijapur, Karnataka, Central India in 1912, under the supervision of Mr. Henry Cousens, superintendent of the Archaelogical Survey of India in Bombay (Mumbai) since 1890; thence, by descent in the family collection in the UK.

Mr. Henry Cousens joined the British Service in India in 1881. In charge of the Archaeolgical Survey since 1890, during his service he wrote five monographs on the sites where he worked: one was about the Chalukyan architecture of the Bombay Presidency; another on the Medieval Temples of the Deccan; one on the Antiquities of the Sind area; one on Somanatha and other Medieval Temples in Kathiawar (Gujarat); and the last one, on Bijapur, where this dish was excavated. On 30th December 1919, he was appointed with the Pinhey Memorial Medal of the Hyderabad Archæological Society by the Royal Asiatic Society. Thanks to the family, the excavation report and notes preserved on the dish that Mr. Cousens found in Bijapur are now available and can be seen among the extra images online.