284.
A ‘FAMILLE ROSE’ SPITTOON
Qing dynasty, early Qianlong period
9,6 cm high
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 4864.
This shape is in the repertory of Chinese ceramic from the Tang period, known as zhadou.
Similar porcelain items were imported to Europe from the seventeenth century thanks mainly to the intermediation of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) (C.J.A. Jörg, Chinese Export Porcelain. Chine de commande from the Royal museum of art and history in Brussels, Hong Kong 1989, p. 78). They were usually used for the chewed tobacco, also known with the Portuguese word cuspidor, which identifies the person who spits. Respect to the zhadou model, this example has an handle which is an addition probably introduced in the early eighteenth century (W.R. Sargent, Treasures of Chinese Export Ceramics from the Peabody Essex Museum, Yale 2012, p. 263).
