QIANLONG PERIOD, CIRCA 1745

Howard and Ayers, (China For the West, vol.1, p.305) suggest that this was undoubtedly a specially commissioned design, since the shapes of pieces are those of European tea-services in about 1740 and as it illustrates music played 'eastward of the Levant', and discuss the possibility that the pattern may have been designed by Cornelis Pronk for a private order through the VOC.