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Lot Essay
This scene would have been taken from a European, possibly Dutch, print, but although the Chinese potter has captured the activity well, the perspective of the buildings was not so successful. See an identical plate from the Mottahedeh Collection, illustrated by Howard and Ayers, China for the West, London and New York, 1978, vol.II, no. 286, also illustrated by Hervouët and Bruneau, La Porcelaine des Compagnies des Indes à Décor Occidental, Paris, 1986, p. 196, fig. 9.4. The authors in the latter publication state that this scene illustrates an episode from the adventures of Hudibras, a poem by Samuel Butler, where Hudibras and his servant Ralph are visited by a widow whilst in the stocks; they add that the print source is one of a series by William Hogarth in circa 1725 to illustrate the poem, and that Hogarth himself took inspiration for this series from anonymous illustrations of Hudibras, published in 1710.