39. IMPORTANT GRAND PLAT EN PORCELAINE BLEU ET BLANC Époque Qianlong (1736-1795), ca. 1740 A RARE AND LARGE BLUE AND WHITE CHINESE EXPORT 'BOTANICAL' CHARGER Qianlong period, ca. 1740 With shallow rounded sides and wide everted rim, painted to the centre with two caterpillars crawling among the leaves of an iris and and orchid, a butterfly hovering above, the wide rim painted with an elaborate strapwork of entwined acanthus leaves and stylized flower heads highlighted with gilt details. 50.5cm (19 7/8in) diam. 清乾隆 約1740年 青花描金草蟲圖大盤 Provenance: Collection of Edmund Loewe, Munich Collection of Dr. G. Blüthner, Baden-Wuerttemberg, acquired from his estate 來源： 慕尼黑Edmund Loewe珍藏 巴登-符騰堡邦G. Blüthner博士珍藏 現藏家得自上述來源 The design of this dish is attributed to Maria Sybille Merian (1646-1717), a trained botanist who traveled to the Dutch West Indies in 1698 to collect specimens for her illustrated book Histoire Generale des Insectes de Surinam et de toute l'Europe, an attribution that has been challenged by Christiaan J.A. Jörg, see Chinese Ceramics in the Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: The Ming and Qing Dynasties, Amsterdam, 1997, cat.no.334. A similar but much smaller plate in the British Museum, is published by Regina Krahl and Jessica Harrison-Hall, Ancient Chinese Trade Ceramics from the British Museum, Taipei, 1994, p.80. Another example is published in David S. Howard and John Ayers, China for the West, vol I, pp.304 and 305.