Continuing on the Imari theme – I thought it might be interesting to look at closeups of a couple of pieces – and at the pitfalls of collecting – this pair dates from around 1720 – they are not quite the same as each other – the reds are slightly different, the level of gilding is different, the underglaze blue is differently spaced – so different ends of the factory? different artists? or maybe one is a replacement. See the reference piece on Gotheborg also shown below. Be careful though as this is a pattern that was copied with surprising accuracy by Doccia between 1760 and 1800 – so I include a dish from the Victoria & Albert museum online collection (black Background) dated by them as just pre 1800 which has Doccia’s marks on the back BUT a) not all Doccia is marked b) Doccia was one of the earliest European manufacturers to produce a convincing hard paste porcelain that is quite hard to differentiate from Chinese export pieces unless you have handled a lot – I have a piece and it was wrongly attributed by several experts including a well-known Auction house until I went to a specialist Museum in Cambridge (and a major auction house) who both recognised it.

Below a Doccia plate from the V&A Museum – late 18th Century