The four birds on this dish are Eurasian tree sparrows (Passer montanus), 樹麻雀. These are auspicious birds – symbolising happiness and the arrival of spring, and while they are less common on porcelains, sparrows, often shown with bamboo, have been a favoured subject for Chinese painters on silk and, later, paper since Song times. Bird and flower painting continued to flourish into the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, with sparrows and bamboo continuing to provide inspiration for Chinese artists on silk and paper to the end of the Qing and into the Republic period.
The admiration of the Yongzheng emperor for fine bird and flower painting on imperial porcelain can be seen from the range of bird and flower depictions on falangcai 琺瑯彩 vessels preserved in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei. Many examples were illustrated in the exhibition catalogue Special Exhibition of Ch’ing Dynasty Enamelled Porcelains of the Imperial Ateliers 清宮中琺瑯彩瓷特展, Taipei, 1992 including a bowl (no. 25) and a small cup (no. 71), both decorated with sparrows.
The black back of this famille rose dish is extremely rare. A pair of black-backed Yongzheng-marked dishes of exactly the same size is in the Zhuyuetang 竹月堂 collection (illustrated in A Millennium of Monochromes from the Great Tang to the High Qing – The Baur and the Zhuyuetang Collections, Geneva, 2018, pp. 260-1, nos. 114 a & b; and in Shimmering Colours – Monochromes of the Yuan to Qing Periods – The Zhuyuetang Collection, Hong Kong, 2005, p. 236, no. 158). The Zhuyuetang dishes also have famille rose decoration on the interior, and six-character marks on the base in underglaze blue.