Lot Essay
The 'Vung Tao Cargo' was sold in these Rooms on 7 & 8 April 1992.
THE 'VUNG TAO CARGO'
In 1989, a Vietnamese fisherman made the chance discovery of the 'Vung Tao Cargo' by trawling the sea-bed on the Southern Coast of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The cargo was salvaged by the state owned Vietnam Salvage Corporation in a joint-venture operation with the Singapore based Swedish diving expert, Sverker Hallstrom. The ship was an Asian trading vessel that had been burnt to the waterline as it was almost certainly bound for Indonesia from China. Batavia (now Jakarta) was the centre of the enormous Dutch East India Company (VOC) where a mixed consignment would have been prepared for the homeward run to Amsterdam or elsewhere along the Netherlandish seaboard.
There was little to date the wreck except a few coins of the reign of the emperor Kangxi (1662-1722) and an inkstick bearing the cyclical date corresponding to AD 1690. The best evidence lies in fact in the study of the porcelain itself that must have been produced within a decade of AD 1683, the year that ceramic historians regard as the official date of the re-opening of China's kilns at Jingdezhen after the Civil War that had disrupted the industry since 1630's.
Eighteen provincial blue and white flaring bowls and eighteen saucer dishes
CIRCA 1690
Details
Eighteen provincial blue and white flaring bowls and eighteen saucer dishes
Circa 1690
The bowls freely painted around the exterior with three roundels alternating with a foliate pattern, the interior with a central unglazed ring; and eighteen dishes painted with a vegetable leaf, magnolia, and inscription yi ye chuan fang (one leaf spreads the fragrance), and a seal mark, the rim brown dressed
the bowls 14.5 cm diam., the dishes 20 cm diam. (36)
Circa 1690
The bowls freely painted around the exterior with three roundels alternating with a foliate pattern, the interior with a central unglazed ring; and eighteen dishes painted with a vegetable leaf, magnolia, and inscription yi ye chuan fang (one leaf spreads the fragrance), and a seal mark, the rim brown dressed
the bowls 14.5 cm diam., the dishes 20 cm diam. (36)