Blue-and-white Plate with Bird and Flower Design

This blue-and-white plate is painted with birds and flowers. The interior walls are decorated with eight brocade-ground openings which contain paintings of flowers and fruit. Panels on the exterior walls contain paintings of glossy ganoderma (a type of Chinese medicine). In the late Ming, large quantities of blue-and-white porcelain that embodied a combination of exotic styles were produced for export.