Three Chinese porcelain English-decorated coffee cups 18th century

Three Chinese porcelain English-decorated coffee cups 18th century, two with original underglaze blue decoration of two dogs beneath pine and a bird in flight, one later enamelled with additional red flowers, the other with polychrome enamels over the original design and with birds perched on extended flowering branches, the last decorated with a red-coated figure amidst tall buildings with barrels beside, a similarly decorated teabowl, and a Chinese slop bowl over-enamelled with mating butterflies and a figure in a boat flying a red pennant, 15cm max. (5)

Provenance: the Helen Espir Collection, nos. 804, 932, 671, 480 and 935.

Illustrated: ECC Transactions, Vol. 23, Helen Espir, London Decoration on Chinese Porcelain, p.36, pls. 11a and 11b for the first two coffee cups.

The red-coated figure on the coffee cup bears similarities to the decoration on a Qianlong plate illustrated in D S Howard, Choice of a Private Trader, p.85, which is believed to depict Peter the Great supervising the unloading of cargo on the shore of a Dutch estuary. The bowl (935), which combines the man in a boat with butterflies, was thought by Stephen Hanscombe to link the man in the red coat decoration to the James Giles workshop.