This is an example of a typical Kakiemon-style octagonal dish that was exported to Europe through the Dutch East India Company from the late seventeenth century onward. The brown hue on the rim was produced with an overglaze of iron pigment, a decorative technique known as huchibeni. The dish features the Chinese story of Sima Guang (1019–1086) of the Song dynasty rescuing a child drowning in a large jar by smashing the vessel with a rock. This tale was imitated on ceramics produced in the Chelsea area in England and Meissen area in Germany from the eighteenth century onward and became known as the story of the “Hob in the Well.”