Antique Chinese Qing Dynasty Rose Medallion Plates For Sale

Antique Chinese Rose Medallion Plates For Sale.  
Late Qing  Dynasty to Early Republic Period, circa 1890-1920. 
7.5", very good condition.   $60 usd /obo + shipping & insurance

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Antique Qing Dynasty Chinese Porcelain Rose Medallion Saucers

 Antique Qing Dynasty Chinese Porcelain Rose Medallion Saucers Tongzhi - Guangxu period

1 round, 1 six-sided. No chips or cracks. Good used condition. Some light fading. Minor pits 1850s-1890s ,approx 5.5" dia $70 usd /obo + shipping & insurance.

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Antique Qing Dynasty Chinese Porcelain Daoguang - Tongzhi Period Saucers

Antique Daoguang -Tongzhi period Qing dynasty 1800s- 1875 Chinese porcelain saucers. Fair condition. No chips or cracks. Fading paint, pitting.   Endless knot mark.

 SOLD

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Jiāqìng Period Qing Dynasty Chinese Porcelain Famille Verte Plate Da Qing Jiaqing Nian Zhi 大清嘉庆年制

I'm thrilled with today's Asian treasure finds, among them, this authentic, original Qing Dynasty Jiāqìng period Famille Verte charger plate, circa 1796 - 1820, with a butterflies and gourds motif.  It is marked with the traditional zhuanshu seal of the period, 大清嘉庆年制 , Dà qīng jiāqìng nián zhì, and is in near mint condition.  The back has 4 red bats.

 

The motif of butterflies and gourds are a favorite design on Chinese enamelled wares.

 Butterfly ( dié 蝶 ) and gourds ( guā 瓜 ) represent the wish for many sons and grandsons (Guā dié miánmián 瓜瓞 绵绵 ). The thousands of seeds found in gourds symbolize the wish for ceaseless generations of descendants. According to Teresa Tse Bartholomew in Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art, San Francisco, 2006, p. 62, the term 'guadie mianmian' comes from the Book of Odes which is one of the earliest collections of Chinese poetry. 

In classical feng shui applications, the bat is considered a symbol of wealth and used as a wealth cure because the same word/pronunciation for Bat is "fu", which also means "Prosperity" in Chinese. Bat also came to represent happiness and longevity, so it is an auspicious symbol in Chinese culture.

The bat (fu 蝠) is a representation of "good fortune" or happiness (fu 福) because both characters are pronounced fu.  Often the bat is shown flying upside down because the character (dao 倒) for "upside-down" and the character (dao 到) meaning "to have arrived" are both pronounced dao.  Therefore, if a person were to say "the bat is flying upside down" a listener could just as easily hear this as "happiness has arrived" which, of course, has a very auspicious connotation. 

   Also, "a bat descending from the sky" (fuzi tianlai 蝠子天来) sounds exactly like "happiness descends from heaven" (fuzi tianlai 福子天来). Two bats facing each other mean double good fortune or happiness.

In the Mandarin Language, a bat is called Biānfú ,  蝙蝠 which is homophonous with Biàn fú, 變福 which means “becoming prosperous” or “turning into blessings”.

Chinese Qing Dynasty Brass Coins

I recently sold a book on eBay and since I had some extra cash in my PayPal account I decided to use those funds to go shopping on eBay.   Among the items I purchased were these Chinese brass coins of the Qing Dynasty, however, they are not genuine Qing Dynasty coins, but copies, or commemorative coins.  Some would call them "fakes", however, the listing made no claims of them being genuine and listed them as being "Archaize" which basically is a way of saying "imitation of ancient" so since they were not being sold as genuine ancient Chinese coins, they're not fakes since there was no deception involved, and besides, my total cost was only $1.34 with free shipping and I really like them.   I just think they're cool. :)

Surely there's no collector value in them, but they're very nice objects that are well made and offered some real educational value since I began looking up information about old Chinese coins to learn more about them.

One of the websites I enjoy reading is Ancient Chinese Charms and Coins, which I find very interesting, even fascinating, and now I have an increased interest in old Chinese coins, so hope to someday have genuine ancient Chinese coins in my collection.   . 

The three coins are, from left to right, kang xi tong bao (康熙通宝) , qian long tong bao (乾隆通宝). & yong zheng tong bao (雍正通宝)

Here's the reverse side of these Chinese brass coins, which is different than what's found on actual genuine Chinese coins, which are typically made out of bronze, not brass