1732, BLUE 4/12 BELOW THE DATE, GREY ENAMEL 541

Money-boxes are relatively rare survivors, presumably because they were repeatedly shaken, or even broken, to retrieve the contents. The graduating sizes of the slots may have been intended to take different sized coins. See Robert Robert D. Aronson and Suzanne M.R. Lambooy, Dutch Delftware, Facing East: Oriental Sources for Dutch Delftware Chinoiserie Figures and highlights from the Mr J. Visser Collection, Heemstede, and the Stigter-Gysberti Hodenpyl Collection, Singapore, Amsterdam, 2010, p.122, no. 72 for a similar triple-sphere money-box dated 1774, where the author notes that many of the surviving examples are dated, indicating that they may have been intended as gifts to commemorate a special occasion. A polychrome money-box of similar triple-section form, painted with birds perched on trees, is illustrated by Jan Daniël van Dam, Delffse Porceleyne, Dutch delftware 1620-1850, Amsterdam, 2004, p. 153, no. 100, and two blue and white examples were sold by Christie's, Amsterdam, on 6 May 2003, lot 324, and 27 June 2000, lot 382.