A PAIR OF CHINESE EXPORT 'CHERRY PICKERS' PLATES circa 1780

each painted with a youth on a ladder propped against a tree, handing fruit to a lady holding up her bustled skirt, a second lady seated on the ground by a wicker basket and a seated dog in the foreground, the rim with an iron-red and gilt cable border.

Philip Suval, Inc., New York, September 14, 1984

San Francisco, Fall Antiques Show, 1995

Each has slight stacking wear, and the paste is a little unrefined and speckly, but the condition of both is otherwise good.
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The scene on this pair of plates is generally referred to as 'The Cherry Pickers' or 'Kersen plukker' and was a popular pattern made for the Dutch market, which continued in production until the early nineteenth century.  It is found on Chinese export bowls, plates, teabowls and saucers, and it is found also in German porcelain, both on wares and as figure groups, most notably modeled by Johann Joachim Kändler (1706-75) at Meissen, circa 1766-70, but versions were made also at several other factories.  As explained by Lange, p. 106, no. 16, who illustrates a Canton enamel beaker of 1770-80 decorated with this subject, it was based on "a popular French print ['La Cueillette des Cerises'], engraved by Nicolas Ponce (1746-1831) after a [pen and ink] painting of the same title by Pierre-Antoine Baudouin (1725-69).  Baudouin's painting (now lost) is thought to have inspired [in 1765 the large painting] by his father-in-law, François Boucher (1703-70)," which now hangs in the Iveagh Bequest at Kenwood House in Hampstead, London.  Lange also illustrates the Ponce engraving, p. 106, fig. 55, and a detail from a Chinese export porcelain dish in this pattern, p. 107, fig. 56. 

The Chinese export porcelain versions follow Ponce's engraving closely, the only major alterations being the absence of the donkey beneath the ladder (an element also lacking in Boucher's painting) and fewer background trees and foreground shrubbery.  Chinese export wares can be found also with a probably slightly later version of the scene depicting the standing lady wearing a green mobcap, and the lady sitting on the ground wearing a yellow frock, as on the bowl illustrated by Lunsingh Scheurleer, pl. 213.

The popularity of this subject in Holland is substantiated by the 'Requirements' of the Dutch East India Company for 1777 and 1778.  (As defined by Jörg 1982, p. 94, the 'Requirements for the Return Shipments' were the "lists in which precise descriptions were given of what types of porcelain the [V.O.C.] directors wanted, what decoration they must bear and in what amounts they must be bought" so that the supercargoes had specific instructions for their porcelain purchases in Canton.)  Jörg 1982, p. 108, indicates that the 1777 specifications included a request for "the pattern that goes by the name of the 'cherry picker', and other European decorations," which was a defensive marketing maneuver, as expressed by the V.O.C. directors, "because it distressed us that our competitors and especially the Swedes brought back more popular kinds [of porcelain] than us each year."  The 'Requirements' for 1778 were similar, but by 1780 no further mention was made of the 'new fashionable patterns,' and "the China Committee even advised the supercargoes to have coffee pots and other things painted 'in the Chinese manner, as you think best'," (ibid., p. 110).  This revelation certainly lends credence to the traditional thought that much of the 'Cherry Pickers' porcelain was made specifically for the Dutch market around 1778-80, but it also is a window into the Dutch predilection for porcelain in the Chinese taste, a fashion driven as much by the economics of the V.O.C. as by a taste for the exotic, and perhaps by their own Delftware and inexpensive English creamware satisfying the more immediate household ceramic requirements.

Nevertheless, production of this pattern continued, with different border designs including panels and rose scalework in the 'Mandarin palette,' which was exported from around 1785 to 1810; and the popularity of the 'Cherry Pickers' also encouraged porcelain painters in  Holland to embellish both undecorated or underglaze-blue-decorated Chinese Export porcelain with variations of the subject.  A Dutch-decorated berry bowl is illustrated by Litzenburg and Bailey, p. 165, no. 160; and eleven pieces from a tea service are illustrated by Lunsingh Scheurleer, pl. 349.

Plates in this pattern are illustrated by Beurdeley, p. 54, fig. 29, along with the Ponce print, fig. 27, and the Boucher painting, fig. 28; by Hervouët and Bruneau, p. 89, no. 4.23; by Hyde, p. 89, pl. XV, fig. 53; by Hyde, Silva and Malta, p. 61, pl. XIV, who also illustrate a teabowl and saucer, p. 63, pl. XV (center), and the print, p. 60; by Phillips, p. 142, pl. 60; and by Veiga, p. 152, pl. 122, who also illustrates a teabowl and saucer, pl. 123.  A further plate was in the collection of Leo and Doris Hodroff, sold at Christie's in New York on January 23, 2008, lot 347