THE "NANKING CARGO"
In the late spring of 1985 Captain Michael Hatcher excavated a ship. The salvage operation, carried out with considerable care and recorded on film, recovered a cargo of well over a hundred thousand pieces of Chinese porcelain, supplemented by finds of western metalwork, stonewares and gold.
The ceramics from the Nanking Cargo were destined for werstern markets. This type of blue and white export porcelain has been called 'Nanking' or 'Nankeen' since it began to appear in trade advertisements and auction catalogues in the 1760's. It was incorretcly believed that these typical fine-quality ceramics for the export trade were made at Nanking. Almost all were potted in the city of Jingdezhen, further South and their only connection with Nanking was when they were transhipped there to the warehouses and muffle kilns of the Hong Kong merchants.
The seventeenth century was an era when Chinese porcelain became more readily available; an era when it became the fashionable medium from which to drink imported Chinese teas, and when Chinese blue and white porcelain was used in massed ranks and assemblages, to accentuate the architectural features of a baroque public room or a private 'china cabinet'. A century later, the Nanking cargo represents a different taste, when Chinese export porcelain was available in sufficient qualities to be an essential part of the furnishings in every respectable house, along with good silver, furniture, carpets and pictures.
The Nanking Cargo was sold at Christie's Amsterdam on 28 April - 2 May 1986.
Ten enamelled teacups and saucers, and six blue and white 'Boatman' plates
CIRCA 1750
Details
Ten enamelled teacups and saucers, and six blue and white 'Boatman' plates
Circa 1750
The teacups and saucers each painted with chrysanthemum, bamboo and daisy issuing around a jagged outcrop of rockwork with elaborate loop handle of European inspiration; and the plates each painted with a fisherman punting his boat in a broad river landscape with a two-storey pavilion on an islet, wutong and rocks on the near bank with a small retreat
the cups 7 cm, the saucers 13 cm, the plates 23 cm diam. (26)
Circa 1750
The teacups and saucers each painted with chrysanthemum, bamboo and daisy issuing around a jagged outcrop of rockwork with elaborate loop handle of European inspiration; and the plates each painted with a fisherman punting his boat in a broad river landscape with a two-storey pavilion on an islet, wutong and rocks on the near bank with a small retreat
the cups 7 cm, the saucers 13 cm, the plates 23 cm diam. (26)