QIANLONG PERIOD, MID-18TH CENTURY

Details

A PAIR OF CHINESE EXPORT PORCELAIN COWS
QIANLONG PERIOD, MID-18TH CENTURY
Modeled after Dutch Delft examples, each brown spotted standing on a canted rectangular base with dark pink edges
5 in. (12.7 cm.) high

Provenance

With J. Rochelle Thomas, London.
Lucy Truman Aldrich, Providence, Rhode Island, 1937-55.
Estate of Lucy Truman Aldrich, acquired September 1955.

Literature

D. Fennimore et al., The David and Peggy Rockefeller Collection: Decorative Arts, New York, 1992, vol. IV, p. 83, no. 76.

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Lot Essay

Breeding Simmental cattle was a passion of Peggy Rockefeller, who believed deeply in the preservation of agriculture and of farmland. In 1992 David and Peggy Rockefeller put almost 3,000 acres of their Hudson Valley cattle-raising properties into a land trust.

The Dutch East India Co. sent Delft cows to China to be copied in 1746, and in 1747 requested, "Cows, each pair with the heads facing each other, white grounds some with brown....according to sample." See W.R. Sargent, op. cit., p. 228.

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