KANGXI

Details

A set of six blue and white 'Scheveningen' plates
Kangxi
Painted in the Japanese style copying a Dutch Delft original in the manner of Frederik van Frytom, the pattern traditionally also known as 'Deshima Island', depicting three figures and a bull in the foreground of various buildings around a harbour, all within a washed-blue wave-pattern border on the flat everted rim, one with small chip
19.8 cm. diam. (6)

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Lot Essay

The view of this well-known pattern is thought to depict the Dutch coastal town Scheveningen, possibly inspired by a Dutch Delft plate by the well-known pottery painter Frederick van Frytom (1652-1702). A Japanese Arita dish painted with a similar landscape included in the Exhibition Interaction in Ceramics, Oriental Porcelain and Delftware, Hong Kong, 1984, Catalogue, no. 65, is known in the Netherlands as a 'View of Scheveningen' and is also illustrated by Howard & Ayers, China for the West, fig. 32a. This scene has also been referred to as Deshima Island, near Nagasaki, which was the V.O.C.'s headquarters in Japan from 1641-1862, but considering the stylistic similarities with the Delft prototypes and the characteristically Dutch details of this scene, seems unlikely.

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