This wide-rimmed bowl has an underglaze cobalt blue decoration. It is densely decorated with stylised butterflies admist foliated scrolls commonly referred to as the sweet pea blossom design. A key fret border decorates the inner rim of the bowl and in the well, where a whorl motif is found at the centre. The whorl motif if referred in Baba Malay as 'batik' perhaps for the resemblance to the densely patterned ground of batik sarongs. Blue and white porcelain is relatively common in the Peranakan community. These wares were known as 'Kitchen Ch'ing', a term that was coined in the 1980s to refer to the range of blue-and white utility wares made during the 19th and 20th centuries in China and exported in large quantities to Southeast Asia. These mass-produced blue and white wares were decorated with transfer prints, which involved the application of printing an image on porcelain in huge numbers. However, they were not particularly sought after by collectors of Peranakan porcelain, who do not view them as unique to the Peranakan community. This type of porcelain was generally used by the Peranakan communities of Singapore and Malacca for ancestral worship and for daily use. It is quite difficult today to find a complete set in perfect condition as most were used and divided up when ancestral houses were dismantled.
