Page 37 - Chinese Export Porcelain MARCHANT GALLERY 2015

23. Armorial marriage plate, decorated in grisaille, sepia and gilt after a European engraving with an allegorical marriage
scene set in a domed interior behind an archway and colonnade with a central bride and groom beside two doves,
the couple accompanied by musicians and Roman gods amongst clouds, including Juno, the wife of Jupiter, with her
peacock and Venus crowning the groom with a floral garland, Neptune in the foreground with his trident accompanied
by nymphs and Triton, one of them blowing a conch shell, all emerging from waves and reeds and beneath a Latin vow
inscribed over the archway Semper Amor Pro Te Firmissimus Aiqus Fidelis, ‘My love for you will always be steadfast and
true’, all encircled by a ruyi-head gilt band and a linked shell and scroll band at the rim.
9 inches, 22.9 cm diameter.
Early Qianlong, circa 1740.
• From the collection of Dr Hardouin, Nantes, western France.
• The Dutch arms on the top of the left column are of Nicholas Geelvinck, who became Mayor of Amsterdam, and on
the right those of Johanna Jacoba Graafland, who he married in 1729.
• An identical plate is illustrated by David S. Howard & John Ayers in China for the West, Volume two, no. 391, p.
394, where the author notes ‘A plaque of the same scene in the Victoria and Albert Museum is dated 1741’, given
by Sir Robert & Lady Prendergast and illustrated by W. B. Honey in Guide to Later Chinese Porcelain, pl. 113b;
another, in the Rijkmuseum, Amsterdam, is illustrated by D. F. Lunsingh Scheurleer in Chinese Export Porcelain,
Chine de Commande, no. 284; yet another is illustrated by Mary Espírito Santo Salgado Lobo Antunes and Maria
Antónia Pinto de Matos in Porcelanas de China, Chinese Porcelain, The Collection of Ricardo do Espírito Santo
Silva, no. 12, p. 33.
• A larger dish of this pattern with these arms in the Victoria & Albert Museum, Gulland Bequest, C.215-1931
is illustrated by Craig Clunas in Chinese Export Art and Design, no. 49, pp. 66/7; another is illustrated by Maria
Antónia Pinto de Matos in The RA Collection of Chinese Ceramics, A Collector’s Vision, Volume Two, no. 326,
pp. 238/9.
• Another plate of this design with different coats of arms on the columns is illustrated by David S. Howard in The
Choice of the Private Trader, the Private Market in Chinese Export Porcelain Illustrated from the Hodroff Collection, no.
66, p. 82, where the author notes ‘This is a plate from one of about ten services with the same scene but different
armorial on the columns. All the identified arms are Dutch.’

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