The dish is delicately enameled in the interior in vibrant tones with an elegant lady dressed in elaborate robes seated on a barrel-form stool beside large wine jars, jardinières and an incense stand as she watches two young boys at play. The exterior is covered with a ruby-pink enamel.

Provenance: L. Wannieck, Paris (according to label).
Janis H. Palmer (1917-1984) Collection, Chicago.
The Art Institute of Chicago, accessioned in 1986.  

Note: The very rare hall mark, Cairun Tang zhi (Made for the Hall Enriched with Brilliance), is recorded by Gerald Davison in The New & Revised Handbook of Marks on Chinese Ceramics, Somerset, 2010, p. 104 and p. 266, no. 1263, where it is attributed to the Qianlong period. 

A virtually identical Cairun Tang zhi-marked bowl of approximately the same size (16.5 cm. diam.) is illustrated by John Ayers in The Baur Collection, vol. 4, Painted and Polychrome Porcelains of the Ch’ing Dynasty, Geneva, 1974, no. A 585. 

Christie's. Chinese Art from The Art Institute of Chicago, New York, 12 September 2019