A CHINESE EXPORT PORCELAIN 'BELGIAN MARKET' ARMORIAL PLATE

The arms on the present plate belong to Jean-Charles de la Bistrate (1715-1803), seigneur de Loer and Neerwinde and chief almoner of Anvers, and his wife, Anne-Martine de Proli (1711-1789), whom he married on 7 October, 1736. Anne-Martine's father was a director of Anvers' Ostend Company, and although he died in 1733, three years before Anne-Martine's marriage to Jean-Charles, his sons remained connected to the company. The commission for the service likely took place via this family connection. For a plate of the same size, see D. Howard and J. Ayers, China for the West, London and New York, 1978, II, p. 453, no. 459.

Another version of the same service is known to exist, distinguished by a mistake in its manufacture, in which the Chinese workshop painted the coat-of-arms of English Governor Charles Boone at the lower border, instead of the Bistrate arms. For an example with this mistake in its decoration, see the plate preserved at the British Museum (museum no. Franks.1410).