Page 22 - Chinese Export Porcelain Art, MET MUSEUM 2003

I8. Covered Beaker and Saucer. Chinese
(presumably Dutch market), 1690-1700.
Hard paste. Beaker (.210): h. with cover
31/2 in. (8.3 cm). Saucer (.2II): diam. 5 /4 in.
(I3.3 cm). Mark: stylized seal. Purchase
by subscription, 1879 (79.2.2Ioa, b; .2II)

The scene on the saucer has not been identified.
The inscription, L'Empire de la vertu est
etabli jusqu'au bout de l'univers, is likely
to refer to Dutch pride spreading that
in
country's influence asfar asAsia. Twenty-
five covers alone werefound in the cargo
of the Vung Tau, datable to about I690-
I700-a mixed shipment of which part was
intendedfor Holland.

19. Plate. Chinese (Dutch market), ca. 1692. Hard paste. Diam. 20. Plate. Chinese (Dutch market), ca. I740. Hard paste. Diam.
77/8 in. (20 cm). Apocryphal reign mark of Chenghua (I465-87). 9 in. (23 cm). Gift of Estate ofJeffrey S. Childs, 1988 (I988.I80.I)
Helena Woolworth McCann Collection, Purchase, Winfield
andfirst
Foundation Gift, I966 (66.27.2) The woman represents Clemency, as described illustrated
in the i644 edition Cesare Ripas Iconologia, originally issued
of
The earliest known example of topical subject in exportporcelain, the in 1593. Ripas work was republished and reillustrated in several
a
the
scene depicts storming of the house the chief bailiffof Rotterdam countries (including the Netherlands) well into the eighteenth
of
on October 4, I690, and was copiedfrom by century. This version the image, in which an additional landscape
of
a silver medal Jan Smeltzing
were not well
(r656-I693) struck the same year. Ephemeral subjects with luxuriantfoliage has been drawn with careful attention to
suited to the export trade, as popular interest was not likely to have textural effects, presumably comesfrom one the later editions.
of
it
survived the two years tookfor an order to be completed; this plate
be seen more as a commemorative order than as the
should therefore
porcelain equivalent of a broadsheet.
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