Hunting Interest: A Chinese famille rose hunting bowl

Hunting Interest: A Chinese famille rose hunting bowl, decorated with two scenes after English hunting engravings, one showing huntsmen and hounds searching a cover and with a similar scene to the reverse, the footrim and inner border with gilt spearhead designs, the interior with a finger citron. Two faint rim cracks. Qianlong c.1760, 33.6cm. The painting from which the scene illustrated was engraved, is by James Seymour (1702-52) and is entitled 'beating for a hare'. A number of other engravings after Seymour were used on similar punch bowls including a set of four fox hunting scenes engraved by Pierre Canot. Such bowls were particularly popular for hunt meetings and would have been ordered in Canton by private traders taking sets of engravings to copy. Cf. David S Howard, The Choice of the Private Trader no.231 for a similar bowl.