The dishes are painted in underglaze blue with a distinctly Dutch river, or canal scene, with figures on a quayside, a man in a rowing boat and various sailing vessels, 12.4cm.
On the far bank is a building with a pointed roof and the curlicue clouds above, are of a kind familiar in Dutch delftware.
The everted rim is bordered in blue; the base with a spurious Ming mark.
The Dutch originals, from which these were copied, carried the monogram MB and the date 1684.
This may have inspired the Arita potters to copy the Chinese practice of putting reign marks on fine ceramics; here using a ‘borrowed’ Ming mark.
