An as-yet-unidentified French silversmith constructed this covered bowl from three different pieces of porcelain imported from Japan. The European name for this type of porcelain was Imari, after the port in Japan from which it was shipped. The lid was made from an inverted plate, and a smaller lid was mounted in silver with a rim and finial. From the mid-1600s onward, larger quantities of porcelain from China and Japan began to be imported into Europe. In the 1700s, dealers of luxury goods called marchands-merciers purchased the porcelain directly at auction or from the East Indies companies and passed it to metalworkers to decorate. Often the porcelain was modified to take the mounts, sometimes creating completely new forms.
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