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Lot Essay
Four differently-enamelled series of Chinese export porcelain plates, but each depicting the same set of six scenes, were produced between 1722 and 1735 for the Dutch market, following the 1720 financial speculation disaster known as 'The South Sea Bubble', which inspired an outpouring of satirical cartoons and engravings, most using the then very fashionable Commedia del'Arte as a barbed weapon, and were used to warn Dutch speculators against making further misjudgements, and possibly also to ridicule the shareholders of the Dutch East India Company. See Howard and Ayers, China for the West, London, 1978, vol. I, pp. 234-235 for a discussion on these series of plates.
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