255.
A PAIR OF POLYCHROME AND GILT ARMORIAL DISHES
Qing dynasty, Yongzheng period, 1726 circa
22,5 cm diam each
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Riccardo De Sangro collection, duke of Sangro and Martina (1889-1978).
inv. nn. S.1154-1155
The coat of arms is that of Hamilton (Gules three cinquefoils ermine) quartering Arran (Argent, a ship, sails furled sable, flags, flying gules), impaling Douglas (Argent, a human heart, imperially crowned proper, on a chief azure three mullets of the field) impaling Hamilton quartering Arran; the shield flanked by two rampant deer and surmounted by a crown, an oak three and the motto “THROUGH”.
The service was made for Archibald of Riccartounin Linlithgow, the seventh son of Anne Duchess of Hamilton – daughter of James the first Duke of Hamilton who descended from the second Earl of Arran – who married the daughter of the Marquis of Douglas. Archibald was Governor of Greenwhich Hospital and Governor of Jamaica from 1708 and 1747. His youngest son Sir William Hamilton was Ambassador to Naples from 1764 and 1800: he had the service with him in Italy (see D.S. Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain, London 1974, p. 226, for a dish of the same service).
