Large Dish (Coupe)

From the Getty Museum record

The large round dish, coupe in French, gently curves up at the perimeter and has molded ornament in the form of four leafy branches stretched out around the rim. The surface is decorated sparingly with two groups of stylized foliage flanked by small flying swallows – one a patch of peony leaves, poppies and bamboo shoots, the other a large branch of chrysanthemum – all colored in blue, turquoise green, orangish red, yellow, and black enamel. The ornamentation is inspired by Japanese Kakiemon ware, a distinctive style of porcelain decoration characterized by sparse asymmetrical designs rendered with a limited palette on a white ground. Of a particularly sophisticated design, this dish is the only known example of its type and was possibly based on a Japanese prototype. It would likely have been used during the dessert course to hold fruit or other delicacies.