CIRCA 1670, THE SILVER MOUNT POSSIBLY MAKER'S MARK A FALCON, MIDDELBURG, 1674

Tankards were ordered from Japan by the V.O.C. in many different shapes and sizes from 1663. Often European stoneware examples were given as examples for tankards that would later be mounted in silver or pewter in the Netherlands. The decoration of the porcelain was usually in the Chinese Wanli and Transitional style in contrast to the above-mentioned lot which closely follows both form and decoration of a German stoneware Westwald prototype. See Ekkart Klinge, German Stoneware, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, p. 103, no. 46 for a tankard of this shape and design. An Imari example of slightly different form is in the Museum het Princessehof, Leeuwarden, see C.J.A. Jörg, Oosters porselein Delfts aardwerk, Wisselwerkingen, 1983, p. 123, no. 81; and for a mounted underglaze blue tankard in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, see D.F. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Chinesisches und japanisches Porzellan in europäischen Fassungen, Braunschweig, 1980, p. 392, Abb. 418.