Porcelain dish, painted with a scene of a young woman supporting an old woman by the arm, China, ca. 1975-1979

Porcelain dish with a brown rim, painted in polychrome enamels with a scene of a young woman, supporting an old woman by the arm, walking in the fields. The girl is wearing a plain uniform composed of a baggy, pink, front-fastening cotton jacket and tan trousers, and plimsolls; her hair is bobbed and across her right shoulder she supports a carrying-pole with a cloth bundle at one end and a canvas bag at the other bearing the characters 'Shanghai', written in modern horizontal rather than traditional vertical sequence. Round her shoulder is a first-aid box. The old woman wears a traditional peasant dress with side-fastening cotton jacket and trousers, and cloth shoes, and she carries a string bag.

To the right are willow branches, and to the left rocks with bamboo and small blossoming plants. Three swallows fly in the sky.

Given by Simon Kwan

This porcelain dish was made at the kilns of Jingdezhen in the late 70s, when industrial production of ceramics ranged from traditional motifs to political and propaganda subjects painted in socialist-realist style. On this dish, a young girl, wearing a plain Cultural Revolution uniform, walks through the fields supporting an elderly peasant woman. She is carrying a bag with the characters 'Shanghai' and a first aid box, suggesting that she is a student from the city who has been sent to the countryside to become a 'barefoot doctor'.

The seal on the front reads: 'May a spring-like feeling spread across people', reinforcing the ideological and propagandistic message conveyed by the scene.

FE.30-1990