CIRCA 1770

Details

A dutch-decorated tea bowl and saucer painted with a whaling scene
Circa 1770
Highlighted in gilt and picked out in black, iron-red, turquoise, blue, yellow cream and brown enamels with whalers harpooning their prey and discharging muskets from rowing boats at a polar bear standing on a snowy rocky outcrop, a larger captured marine animal emitting spray from its blow hole and before sailing ships, one flying the Dutch national flag, a flock of seagulls flying overhead, the interior of the drinking vessel with crossed harpoons amidst floral sprays and above a solitary swimming walrus, cracks

Provenance

Anonymous sale; Christie's, New York, 22-23 October 1987, lot 542 (to Dreesmann).
Dr Anton C.R. Dreesmann (inventory no. J-142).

Special notice

Christie's charges a Buyer's premium calculated at 20.825% of the hammer price for each lot with a value up to €90,000. If the hammer price of a lot exceeds €90,000 then the premium for the lot is calculated at 20.825% of the first €90,000 plus 11.9% of any amount in excess of €90,000. Buyer's Premium is calculated on this basis for each lot individually.

Sale room notice

Please note that this lot is wrongly numbered below the illustration as lot 1313. The right hand side bowl and saucer is lot 1314.

Lot Essay

The design is that of whale hunting in the polar region, and the scene probably depicts fishermen from Zaan, North Holland, who were whalers in the later part of the 18th century. The Dutch made several attempts to reach China by way of northern Norway. It was not, however, until 1728 that Bering, the Danish navigator, discovered the strait which was consequently named after him. (see D.F. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Chinese Export Porcelain, no. 356, for an example in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, illustrated also in M. Beurdeley, Porcelain of the East India Companies, London, 1962, p. 99, fig. 67).
A similar tea bowl and saucer was sold at Christie's Amsterdam, 8 April 1987, lot 363.

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