Lot Essay
The 'Diana Cargo', sold at Christie's Amsterdam in 1994, was the latest of the four Export porcelain cargoes to be auctioned there. The 'Diana' was a well-recorded ship, and the whole story of the preliminary research and salvage has been published by Dorian Ball, The Diana Adventure, 1995. The ship was travelling from Canton to India in 1816, when it hit an unexpected reef in the Straits of Malacca, by sailing too close to the coast after leaving the Malacca Roads where it had been revictualling. The cargo contained some 25,000 pieces of Export porcelain, principally blue and white, in two basic grades of quality: the 'blue Fitzhugh' wares, such as the present lot, were the finest pieces salvaged from the entire cargo.