CIRCA 1720

Series of dishes in four different patterns were ordered in China in the 1720's with the arms of the principle provinces and towns of present-day Belgium and the Netherlands, plus the arms of England and France. 23 different arms seem to comprise each complete series. Documentary evidence of this order has yet to come to light, but C. Le Corbeiller has pointed out that the spellings suggest a Dutch clientele, and that the grouping suggests the borders of this region after the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht which ended the War of the Spanish Succession. In 1717 a Triple Alliance marked the new rapport of England, France and the Netherlands, and Le Corbeiller suggests that the dishes may have commemorated this relationship. (China Trade Porcelain, pp.37-39). No one has yet explained why certain arms appear again and again, while other quite major centers like Haarlem and Leiden are not represented at all.
Though individual examples from each series have appeared on the public art market periodically, a number of dishes have been offered only twice, in Paris, the Palais Galleria, 27 June 1969, from the collection of the Duc de X..., and in London, Sotheby's, 6 November 1973, lots 168 to 182. See Howard & Ayers, op. cit., p. 118