A CHINESE EXPORT EGGSHELL SAUCER DISH circa 1735-50

painted with a half-length double portrait of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and her prince consort Francis of Lorraine beneath two imperial crowns within a gilt roundel, the rim with a border of gilt flowering branches and fruiting grapevines.  Small frit-chip.

Wear to the gilding on the edge of the rim, 2mm chip at 3 o'clock.
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A teabowl and saucer from this service are illustrated by Lunsingh Scheurleer, pl. 251; and a saucer is illustrated by Hervouët and Bruneau, p. 230, no. 9.107, who note that it depicts Maria Theresa ([1717-80], Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, who by virtue of the Pragmatic Sanction succeeded to the Habsburg dominions in 1740) and Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine (1708-65), who were married in 1736. This service may have been ordered to commemorate either the marriage or possibly her elevation in 1740.  There is, however, another possibility.  Besides the similarity of this image of Maria Theresa to portraits of the 1750s, the gilt vine border relates somewhat to the border on an armorial service made for Francis' brother, Charles Alexander (1712-80) of Lorraine, a teabowl and saucer from which is illustrated by Jörg 1989, p. 266, no. 108, with the comment that Charles Alexander of Lorraine was appointed by Maria Theresa "in 1748 as Governor-General of the Austrian Netherlands, in which post he served until 1780." His service was ordered during this time, circa 1760, and it is possible that the present service was commissioned simultaneously, perhaps as a gift to the imperial couple for their twentieth or twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, although stylistically, it probably celebrates an earlier event.

The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts was given an example of this service by Khalil Rizk.