The dish combines two different patterns found on Japanese porcelain made between about 1680 and 1725 at Arita (on the island of Kyushu) and intended for export . In the upper half is a pattern copied from wares of the Kakiemon type, named after a family of Arita potters and characterised by delicate, often asymmetric designs, in a restricted palette of cerulean blue, soft coral red, green, yellow and black enamels. In the lower half is a pattern derived from Imari porcelain design, named after the port near Arita where porcelain was shipped to Nagasaki for sale to Chinese and Dutch merchants. Imari designs are bold and ostentatious, and are characterised by dense patterns in a distinctive colour palette, which typically includes underglaze blue, iron-red enamel and gold.

Both the rich polychrome enamel colours and the patterns of these Japanese ceramics were much admired and widely imitated in Europe, where hitherto only Chinese blue-and-white porcelains had been familiar. Kakiemon designs were extensively copied in the Netherlands, France, Germany and England. This dish was made at the Meissen factory founded in 1710 by Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, which was the first European factory to make true porcelain of the East Asian type. Augustus eventually came to own more than 24,000 Asian ceramics, and ordered even greater quantities from his own manufactory.