Page 82 - Bonhams Catalog Cohen and Cohen Jan 24, 2023 New York

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A PAIR OF BLUE AND WHITE OVAL BUTTER TUBS, COVERS Butter tubs and covers were salvaged in 1985 from the wreck of the
AND STANDS Dutch VOC ship Geldermalsen, which sank in January 1752 during
Qianlong period, circa 1760 what should have been a relatively uneventful journey home from its
Each with a slightly flaring body and lightly domed cover with temporary Chinese mooring in Whampoa Reach on the Pearl River,
mushroom finial and deep stand, painted in rich blue with a simply downstream from the trading wharves along the Canton waterfront.
robed traveler and his companion approaching the arched gateway They were salvaged in two shapes, oval and circular. Both shapes
to a pavilion, with mist-shrouded mountain peaks ranged majestically imitated rustic Dutch wooden butter tubs of an earlier date. ‘Circular
across the far horizon. porcelain butter tubs accompanied by matching saucers’ appeared
the stands: 6in (15cm) wide (2). until 1745 in shipping Requirements issued by the VOC to its factors
in Asia. Oval ones, which according to the Requirements would come
$1,000 - 1,500 without saucers, appeared only in the lists from 1750. The covers
of the tubs found on the Geldermalsen even more clearly imitated
乾隆時期 約1760年 青花橢圓牛油蓋盒托盤組一對 their wooden prototypes; the covers were fitted with a thin long final
resembling a wooden carrying handle, rather than the more elegant
Butter tubs were an unusual element in very many East India cargoes ‘mushroom cap’ finials on the present pair, which date from perhaps
returning from China in the 18th century, the peak period of the twenty year later.
‘China Trade’. All kinds of standard European-taste dishes, plates,
tureens and other shaped vessels formed a substantial part of most References: see Colin Sheaf and Richard Kilburn, The Hatcher
Company’s own large-volume, non-perishable commercial cargoes, Porcelain Cargoes, 1988, pls. 176-178, pp. 136-137 for three
as by now these Export porcelains were automatically needed for a variants of the type recovered intact from the Geldermalsen, but none
conventional European dining table. apparently shipped with matching under dishes unlike the present lot.

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