Small polylobed dish in enamelled earthenware, resting on four small spherical feet and covered with a celadon glaze. Its polychrome decoration of Far Eastern inspiration consists of lush vegetation of banana trees, bamboo, palm trees and grasses, which unfolds over the entire surface in a subtle harmony of blues and greens.
A horn vase with comparable plant decoration, exhibited by Auguste Jean in London in 1862, allows this pair to be dated to the 1860s-1870s.
This dish demonstrates Auguste Jean's interest in Far Eastern arts, of which he offers a free and personal interpretation here. The painted decoration, the palette of blues and greens and its pictorial treatment are part of the orientalist taste that was then renewing French decorative arts. Like Théodore Deck and Eugène Collinot, Auguste Jean thus participated in the eclecticism that characterized French ceramics under the Second Empire.
Condition: The enamel surface shows numerous small "pits".
Signature: Signed on the reverse, under the piece: "Jean AJ".
