Dish with Decoration of Oxen and Cherry Blossoms

Dish with Decoration of Oxen and Cherry Blossoms relates to Giovanna Garzoni’s Dog with a Biscuit and a Chinese Cup as an example of the type of ceramic ware that Garzoni came into contact with and depicted in her artwork. As a court artist for the Medici family, Garzoni had access to the Medici family’s vast collection of objects from around the world, including Ming-era porcelain [5]. The presence of Chinese-style objects can be seen in several Garzoni still life paintings, including Dog with a Biscuit and a Chinese Cup. This particular porcelain dish is similar in subject matter and stylistic rendering to the cup pictured in Garzoni’s Dog with a Biscuit and a Chinese Cup. Both the dish and the cup are white porcelain and include depictions of nature, with both featuring butterflies and flowering plants as subjects. Additionally, the painting method utilized in Garzoni’s painting of the cup is similar to the style of painting seen in the Ming-era dish. The ornamentation on Garzoni’s Chinese cup demonstrates the great care and detail she took to emulate the painting style characteristic of Ming-era porcelain.  

[5] Barker, Sheila, and Sheila Barker. “The Universe of Giovanna Garzoni. Art, Mobility, and the Global Turn in the Geographical Imaginary.” Essay. In "The Immensity of the Universe" in the Art of Giovanna Garzoni, 16–29. Sillabe, 2020.

[6] Dish with Decoration of Oxen and Cherry Blossoms. Images, n.d. https://jstor.org/stable/community.18400505.

[7] Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Jingdezhen." Encyclopedia Britannica, November 30, 2017. https://www.britannica.com/place/Jingdezhen.