Two Chinese porcelain teabowls and two coffee cups 18th century

Two Chinese porcelain teabowls and two coffee cups 18th century, enamelled with monochrome European landscape scenes in puce, red and green, two with tied ribbon borders, one with a bianco-sopra-bianco chequered design overlaid with pink rose sprays, 9cm max. (4)

Provenance: the Helen Espir Collection, nos. 810, 811, 812 and 813. Purchased from Phillips, The Watney Collection Part III, lot 814.

Helen Espir casts some doubt over whether these were English-decorated, as Bernard Watney believed, or actually painted in China in the European style. She cites the round bushes of the red coffee cup and the brushstrokes of the puce teabowl as being perhaps more characteristic of Chinese decoration. Potentially something of an academic problem, these four pieces perfectly represent the two-way flow of influence between the Orient and Europe during the 18th century.