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af Wirsén

The arms are of the Swedish noble family, af Wirsén. The first with that name was the Over Adjutant and Major at the Army Fleet Carl Johan Wirsén (1777-1825). He was ennobled the 18th of Mars 1812 by the Swedish King Karl XIII and given the name af Wirsén, introduced the 23rd of May 1812, as no. 2221.

This is one of the last armorial services that are recorded to have been made for the Swedish market and most likely dates to the Qing dynasty, Jiaqing (1796-1820) period. Since the Swedish East India Company did not have any trade with China any more at this time, the porcelain must have been ordered via some other family or trading house still having business with China.

The decoration is in traditional Chinese "Famille rose" enamels. The Chinese name for these enamels are nowadays fencai but since this name does not seems to have come into use before the late 19th century it is questionably if that is the right term to use.

This decoration has been widely copied and the fakes heavily out numbers the real ones. It is possibly to identify the copies by a close comparison with the pictures here, since the copyists does not seems to be able to get the "dolphins" of the coat-of-arms right.