Canton porcelain plate with iron-red flower patterns

The Fitzhugh is a decorative pattern used on porcelain from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was associated with a specific blue-and-white porcelain set commissioned by Thomas Fitzhugh, a director of the British East India Company. The design includes four floral motifs surrounding a central circular one, as well as symbolic elements, such as the four prized tools of the Chinese literati: the qin (a stringed instrument), qi (the game Go), shu (calligraphy), and hua (painting). The decoration on its outer border is a complex pattern composed of butterfly fish-roe, diamond, rectangular, fish-scale, and branching-flower patterns. Canton enamelware featuring the Fitzhugh pattern is primarily decorated with green, iron red, and brown colors. The three enamel colors were primarily designed for the American market, with green being the most popular. However, green enamel was extremely unstable and the color ran easily, resulting in varying degrees of smudging. To avoid this, the majority of these products were decorated in green enamel only.