Lot Essay
Commissioned in 1735, 'The Doctor's Visit to the Emperor' is the second design drawn by Cornelis Pronk for the Dutch East India Company, the first being 'La Dame au Parasol' in 1734 (See lot 280). Due to the expense of transferring the subject onto porcelain, the volume of Pronk's work is small and only two orders of this design were believed to have been placed: the first was carried to the Netherlands on the Hogersmilde at the end of 1738 followed by the second order in the next year. A simplified version of the design, which excludes the standing man, was sent to Canton in 1739.
This bottle would have originally formed part of a five-piece mantlepiece garniture. According to the Dutch East India Company records, eighteen garnitures with this design decorated in famille rose enamels were sent to the Netherlands.
Cf. the similar slightly taller bottle from the Gemeente Museum, The Hague exhibited in their 1980 exhibition, Pronk Porcelain, and used by C.J.A. Jörg on the front cover, Catalogue, no.46, p.78, together with other exhibits bearing this design; another, formerly in the C. T. Loo Collection, illustrated by M. Beurdeley, op.cit., cat.125, p.178; another is illustrated by D. F. Lunsingh Scheurleer, op.cit., fig.201; and another, being one of a pair, in the Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels, was exhibited in Hong Kong, 1989, Catalogue, no.48, pp.144 and 145.
Garnitures with this design were also executed in blue and white. For a complete garniture with this design from the Hodroff Collection, see D. S. Howard, op.cit., 1994, no.284, p.240
This bottle would have originally formed part of a five-piece mantlepiece garniture. According to the Dutch East India Company records, eighteen garnitures with this design decorated in famille rose enamels were sent to the Netherlands.
Cf. the similar slightly taller bottle from the Gemeente Museum, The Hague exhibited in their 1980 exhibition, Pronk Porcelain, and used by C.J.A. Jörg on the front cover, Catalogue, no.46, p.78, together with other exhibits bearing this design; another, formerly in the C. T. Loo Collection, illustrated by M. Beurdeley, op.cit., cat.125, p.178; another is illustrated by D. F. Lunsingh Scheurleer, op.cit., fig.201; and another, being one of a pair, in the Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels, was exhibited in Hong Kong, 1989, Catalogue, no.48, pp.144 and 145.
Garnitures with this design were also executed in blue and white. For a complete garniture with this design from the Hodroff Collection, see D. S. Howard, op.cit., 1994, no.284, p.240