258.
A ‘FAMILLE ROSE’ ARMORIAL CUP AND SAUCER
Qing dynasty, Yongzheng period, dated to 1728
3,5 x 6,4 cm (cup) and 10,4 cm diam (saucer)
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 3718.
The decoration on these two pieces – with the arms of the Dutch Republic consisting in a crowned rampant lion with a sword in his right paw and seven arrows in his left one, all inside a shield surmounted by a royal crown and flanked by two rampant crowned lions, below the VOC monogram of the Dutch East India Company (Verenidge Oostindische Compagnie) surrounded by Baroque leaves, along the rim the motto Concordia res Parvae Crescunt (“Through unity small things become greater”) and the date 1728 – is directly inspired by the reverse of the first Dutch silver ducatoon specifically thought for the circulation in the Indies, minted for the VOC by the Hoorn Mint of West Friesland and by the Holland and Zeeland mints in 1728.
The Chinese porcelain pieces with this decoration were with many probabilities produced to celebrate the minting of the coins, which coincided with the beginning of the direct trade between the Company and Canton, for the first time without the passage from Batavia. The first ship reaching Canton after the agreement, The Coxhorn, had on board 3 tons of silver (C.S. Woodward, Oriental ceramics at the cape of Good Hope 1652-1795. An account of the porcelain trade of the Dutch east India Company with particular reference to ceramics wit the V.O.C. Monogram, the Cape Market and South African collections, Cape Town 1974, p. 99), probably the minted coins, leaving from there with a cargo of tea and porcelain, possibly the services with the ducatoon decoration (D.F. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Chinese Export Porcelain, Chine de Commande, London 1974, p. 61).
Regarding the enamelled decoration, it was probably added in Canton on undecorated pieced produced in Jingdezhen (R. Kerr – L.E. Mengoni, Chinese Export Ceramics, London 2011, p. 10, pl. 3, about a similar cup and saucer in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London), an hypothesis which is not accepted by all the scholars, such as Christiaan Jörg who suggest a date around 1740 for the beginning of this practice (C.J.A. Jörg, Porcelain and the Dutch China trade, The Hague 1982, pp. 126-128).
A teapot with the same decoration is in the Gemeentenmuseum in Den Haag (C.J.A. Jörg, Oriental Porcelain in The Netherlands. Four Museum Collections, Groninger 2003, p. 28, n. 10); see also the cup and two saucers published by Le Corbeiller (1974, n. 43), the saucer illustrated by Beurdeley (1962, p. 98, fig. 65), the cup and saucer in the British Museum, Percival David Foundation (R. Scott, Illustrated Catalogue of Qing Enamelled Ware in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London 1991, p. 45) and the dish published in Howard–Ayers 1978, I, n. 191; a group with a teapot, a dish, a cup and a saucer with the same decoration is in the Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire in Bruxelles (Ancient Chinese Trade Ceramics from Musès Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Bruxelles, exhibition catalogue, Beijing 1992, p. 56).
