A rare set of three Chinese Export Armorial dishes for the Portuguese market, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period, circa 1765

Elaborately decorated and bearing the arms of Dom Gaspar de Saldanha e Albuquerque (c.1719-1771), the design of the present service counts as one of the most iconic and unique dining sets produced in China for the European market. The son of Aires de Saldanha Albuquerque e Castro, the Governor and Captain-General of Rio de Janeiro, Gaspar served the Principal of the Holy Patriarchal Basilica of Lisbon, and the Dean and Reformer of the University of Coimbra from 1757-67. 

A pair of wine coolers of the present design is illustrated in A. Varela Santos, Portugal in Porcelain from China: 500 Years of Trade, vol. II, Lisbon, 2008, cat. no. 5.03, where the author discusses the arms in detail, and speculates that Gaspar had a great interest in hunting in fishing, which gave the inspiration to the service's unique design. Another plate, meanwhile, is illustrated in Maria Antónia Pinto de Matos, The RA Collection of Chinese Ceramics: A Collector's Vision, vol. III, London, 2011, cat. no. 498, where the author takes the design as a eulogy to fine dining and notes that there are no other dinner services with similar decoration known, and that it is one of the only few services known that combined porcelain with painted enamel pieces.

A selection of examples from this service is illustrated in John Goldsmith Phillips, China-Trade Porcelain: An Account of Its Historical Background, Manufacture, and Decoration and a Study of the Helena Woolworth McCann Collection, Cambridge, 1956, pls. 6, 37 and 38, now primarily preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.