CIRCA 1740

The arms are those of Nicholas Geelvinck, who later became Mayor of Amsterdam, and Johanna Jacoba Graafland; they married in 1729. This decoration appears on at least six known armorial services, all made for Dutch families. The scene, depicting the wedding of Juno and Hymen with Ceres and Prudence attending, probably derives from a seventeenth century book frontispiece. See Howard and Ayers, China for the West, London and New York, 1978, vol.II, p.394, no. 391 for a very similar plate from the Mottahedeh collection. A plaque of the same scene dated 1741 is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, illustrated by W. B. Honey, Guide to Later Porcelain, pl.113b. A plate with these arms is in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, illustrated by D. F. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Chinese Export Porcelain, London 1974, fig. 284. See also Hervouët and Bruneau, La Porcelaine des Compagnies des Indes à Décor Occidental, Paris, 1986, p. 316, fig. 13.87 for another plate.