Featured Large Heavy Hand Painted Chinese Insulated? Well Tray

This is another mystery piece from a regular consignor. All he could offer was that it is Chinese.
I see no identifying markings of any kind on the bottom, but there are inscriptions all around the top rim. Inside the bottom of the well is a hand-painted landscape scene.
This heavy ceramic/porcelain dish measures approx. 16" x 11-1/4" x 2-1/2", and weighs 8 pounds.
The odd thing is that the well is inset from the sides, which are vented - but not the bottom. My best guess is this is insulation for carrying it with hot contents inside...?
This piece reminds me of many of the cheap heavy modern pieces found in stores today, but I really don't know anything about it, and the consignor is a long-time antique picker/collector, so I'd appreciate ANY info regarding its inscriptions, age, purpose, etc.
THANX in advance!

 

Well that is certainly a puzzler. I haven't been able to find anything.

@Asian Fever
Can you translate any of the characters around the rim?

 

You guys always give me hard problems.... translate antique poems are always very very hard......I can translate word by word, but that's totally not what the writer want to express...

 

@Asian Fever

So the writing around the rim is a poem or story?

 

Do you happen to know what the bowl would have been used for?

 

Read from right to left: Bright moon lights in the pine forest as a painting scroll



Read from right to left: Clear creek flows on the river rocks as ????? (Cannot read the 5th word neither can I guess the meaning of 5th and 6th word they are combined to express one meaning.)

 

read from top to bottom: Lucky brush pen express ??? I cannot read the last word. sorry, Cannot recognize it.


read from top to bottom: forever flavor ??? I cannot read the last word, it's faded.

 

IMO, brush wash for sure.

 

Thank you.

 

BTW, the porcelain is IN late qing to early republic period Qianjiang color porcelain style. (1862 - 1949). HOWEVER, I am not telling this piece is from that period because I have sold similar ones which are modern replicas.

http://gotheborg.com/glossary/qianjiang.shtml


The gotheborg mentioned it's most famous during 1862-1908. However, the best Qianjiang color porcelains are made by Eight Friends of Zhushan, they made fabulous Qianjiang color porcelains until 1960.

 

Thank you for the link.
That's interesting.
Also googled for other images. Very nice.
https://www.google.com/search?tbm=i......1....1..gws-wiz-img.......0i24.oxP9iU7nEtw

 

The easy ones are for us simpletons, the hard ones are for you.

Thank you for the link, I hadn't come across the term before. I just bookmarked the page. I have several snuff bottles in that style, which I always called scholar style because of the subject. Good to know more about it.
I don't quite understand how the umber comes into it though, there is very little umber. To me the dominant colour is green, or is that my funny brain?

 

Thanx for all the great input! I know sometimes it's hard to make positive ID from pictures, but every little bit helps.
What I am still curious about is the hollow ends - is that likely for function or decoration - or both?

 

Since the flat top section extends out from the sides, I'm wondering if it was designed to be suspended over a deeper, slightly larger piece?

That bottom piece could contain either hot or cold water that would then flow into the hollow area of the top container to keep food at the desired temperature. If so, it's a clever design.

 

That's surely a creative and interesting suggestion; but there doesn't seems to be very much of a lip to support such a heavy piece...

 

Flat top section extends is used for placing brush pens

Uh..... It is just okay for you to use it as buffet server. However, it is really a brush wash.

 

I believe you.

It does seem odd though that there's the hollow underneath part with holes?

 

These are similar pieces called table planter.

https://picclick.com/Antique-Chinese-Planter-223165324243.html

https://picclick.com/Antique-Chinese-Japanese-Multicolored-Porcelain-Flower-113266453563.html

https://picclick.com/Antique-Qing-Chinese-Footed-Porcelain-Narcissus-Pot-Planter-123383095501.html

As you all can see ,these planters are clear in decoration in hollows.
While this piece has decoration picture in the middle, if it is used as planter, it can only used for aquatic plants, because can see through water and get view of these pictures.

 

Ah - When I breezed through a bunch of the responses earlier, I didn't catch your meaning when you wrote "brush wash" - NOW I get it - THANX!

 

This is either a planter or a platter. The 4 red characters on the left rim are 永味清香，i.e. forever tasteful and smell good. This seems to tell it is a platter. There is a kind of keeping warm platter that the hollow works as insulated. Some hollow can also hold hot water in it, but this one doesn't seem to be able to hold water.
. 16" x 11" is very standard for large platter. I have two such sized Chinese antique rose medallion platters without hollow.

Anyway, just a guess, it can also be a table planter.