A large 'famille-rose' carved porcelain screen Qing Dynasty, Qianlong Period

of rectangular form, the plaque carved in high-relief and colourfully painted with a group of Western foreigners clad in period costume wearing wigs and tricorn hats disembarking their large trading ships in China, bearing tribute gifts including a white elephant, a lion, books and other offerings, traversing across a rocky landscape of waterfalls and a steep staircase, set in a hongmu frame carved with bats and shou characters, above a smaller narrow porcelain plaque containing a blue shou character reserved against a pink ground amdist finger citrons, peaches, bats, pomegranates and peonies on a foliate scroll

The overall condition is very good with the enamels intact.
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Europeans began to trade in Canton in 1698, and by the beginning of the Qianlong period, ships from Britain, Holland, France, Denmark and Sweden made annual visits to the port. The present screen depicts a somewhat mythical image of Westerners at port, with thick undulating waves and nary a house in sight. The figures appear to have arrived at a lush idyllic setting of craggy mountains and colorful flowers among tall pine trees, a setting traditionally reserved for sages in Chinese ink paintings. This is a stark antithesis to another table screen attributed to the Qianlong period, made of reverse painted glass and inlaid with ivory, depicting ships at Canton, illustrated in Anna Jackson and Amin Jaffer (editors), Encounters: The Meeting of Asia and Europe, 1500-1800, London, 2004, fig. 11.10, p. 154.

Famille-rose carved porcelain plaques featuring this subject are extremely rare. See a very similar Qianlong period example, also featuring foreigners bearing tributes, sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 29th May 2007, lot 1400.