Meissen plates with underglaze-blue decoration

From the Phoenix with Prunus Tree Service. With wavy, brown-edged rims, painted after a Chinese original from around 1700 with a phoenix perched on a flowering branch opposite fanciful towering rockwork and gnarled branches, the border scalloped into sixteen panels divided into eight segments alternating between four different garden scenes, the under- rim painted in blue with a border of trailing plants and rocks, the centre of the underside painted with a prunus tree issuing from stylised rockwork above the Meissen factory mark, both with crossed swords mark and a letter O in underglaze-blue, one plate impressed 20 (2). The elaborate painting on the back is unique (von Barsewisch, Keramos 121/1988, p. 72). This mark is only known on this type of plate.