589. Chinese Porcelain Soap Dish

Famille Rose Turquoise-Ground Soap Dish

This soap dish shows peonies and a pheasant/pheonix against a turquoise green background and with coral red edging. It is complete with a soap tray with holes for drainage. It sits on a low foot and has a small arched handle to the lid.

The dish is unusual in that the sides are scalloped. Most extant Straits soap dishes have straight sides. (They are relatively uncommon in any event.)

The condition of the piece is excellent. There are no chips or cracks or any other losses. The internal soap tray does have staining, no doubt from having come into contact with harsh caustic soaps.

The base is marked with a false Chien Lung reign mark as is often the case with porcelain made for the Straits Chinese market in the late 19th century.

Porcelain such as this was often commissioned, often for use associated with elaborate weddings, from the kilns of southern China by the localised Chinese of the Straits settlements of Singapore, Malacca and Penang.