CIRCA 1785

Details

A LARGE RARE GRISAILLE-DECORATED 'MARITIME' PUNCH BOWL
CIRCA 1785
Very finely decorated on the exterior with a continuous scene depicting a large ship moored in an estuary being loaded with its cargo, with numerous smaller ships and boats anchored offshore, with European figures busy on the quayside, fortified warehouses on the far bank of the estuary, the interior with a roundel depicting a building on the banks of a quiet back-water, a band of diaper-pattern above pale green enamel dots at the rim, restored
14½ in. (36.7 cm.) diam., wood stand

Provenance

Mildred R. and Rafi Y. Mottahedeh no. 944, sold Sotheby's New York, 30 January 1985, lot 134

Literature

D. Howard and J. Ayers, China for the West, London and New York, 1978, vol. I, no. 222, pp. 224 and 225
F. and N. Hervouët and Y. Bruneau, La Porcelaine des Compagnies des Indes à Décor Occidental, Paris, 1986, fig. 2.42, p. 51

Exhibited

The Mottahedeh Collection, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, January 1981 - October 1982

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium

Lot Essay

See Howard and Ayers, ibid., p.225 where the authors say "The quality of the painting on the outside is particularly fine, equal in all respects to the finest bowls depicting naval actions." They go on to suggest that the scene is possibly after a Portuguese original, since the ship in the foreground is of the type found in the Mediterranean in the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

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