In this piece, a rather small but hefty elephant with delicate curling trunk and tusks (broken), supports two figures who appear to be doing a kind of performance on its back. The seated figure wears a crowned head dress, long tunic and tall boots, and appears to be singing, accompanied by the standing figure with a pair of large castanets. This is another humourous piece for the Western market. Elephants were not native to China and their depiction in Chinese art often called for a degree of artistic licence, as artists would have worked from imagination or second-hand information.Dehua, located on the southeast coast of Fujian province, is well known for its production of white porcelain, known to Europeans as 'blanc de Chine'. The earliest Dehua porcelain was produced as early as the 14th century but the production and quality of these porcelain peaked around the 17th and 18th centuries.
