Straits Chinese Porcelain, Nonyaware

Pair of Straits Chinese Rose-Pink & White Plates

This pair of larger plates was acquired in the UK from a Chinese lady who is descended from a Penang Straits Chinese family. The plates had belonged to her grandmother.

They show, in polychrome enamel against a white ground, a phoenix amid pink and light blue peonies, within a rose pink border decorated with pink lotus flowers and Daoist symbols.

The undersides of the rims are decorated with sprays of multi-coloured flowers.

The plates are in good condition and are without cracks, chips or repairs.

Plates such as these were commissioned from China by wealthy Straits Chinese or Baba families in Singapore, Malacca and Penang in the nineteenth and early twentieth century as part of larger sets for wedding banquets. The sets were made to Straits Chinese tastes and invariably feature bright colours, phoenixes and peonies.

The bases of both are stamped in red polychrome with the mark for the

Wangshengshu Zao factory.

Ho, W.M., Straits Chinese Porcelain: A Collector’s Guide, Times Books International, 1983.

Kee, M.Y.,

Straits Chinese Porcelain, Kee Ming Yuet Sdn Bhd, 2004.

Kee, M.Y.,

Peranakan Chinese Porcelain: Vibrant Festive Ware of the Straits Chinese, Tuttle Publishing, 2009.

The Southeast Asian Ceramics Society – West Malaysia Chapter,

Nonya Ware and Kitchen Ch’ing, Oxford University Press, 1981

a family heirloom of a UK-based lady descended from a Penang Straits Chinese family.