Lot Essay
The sale of the cargo of the Dutch VOC 'Geldermalsen', at Christie's Amsterdam in April 1986, remains one of the artworld sensations of the 1980's, and it achieved by far the record total ever for an auction of Chinese export art; see C. Sheaf and R. Kilburn, op.cit., Part 2.Of the cargo of 150,000 pieces of porcelain, by far the most interesting were the 'blue and white' wares, often in superb unused condition, and exhibiting a range of painted patterns familiar to collectors, but for the first time exactly datable to the summer of 1751, when this cargo was commissioned by the 'Hoge Regering' (VOC local administration Council in Batavia), and the instructions dispatched to Canton: see C. Jorg, The Geldermalsen: History and Porcelain, passim. Among the blue and white designs, none was more dramatic than the splendid large fish dishes. They were commissioned to be produced in three palettes: blue and white, blue and enamelled, and all-enamelled. The blue and white ones are the only ones which survived, completely unscathed, the effect of two centuries of salt water on the glaze.