saucer; cup BM-Franks.797.+

Period:Qing dynasty Production date:1729-1730 (circa)
Materials:porcelain
Technique:glazed, painted,

Dimensions:Diameter: 10.40 centimetres (saucer) Height: 3.60 centimetres (cup)

Description:
‘Famille rose’ teacup and saucer, made for the Dutch East India Company. The design of this teacup ans saucer is composed of a crowned coat of arms supported by two crowned lions rampant, below which is the monogram ‘VOC’ framed by scrollwork, all painted in rose-pink, red, yellow and green enamels. Encircling this design is the date 1728 and the Latin motto ‘CONCORDIA RES PARVAE CRESCUNT’ (‘small things grow great in unity’). The rim of the saucer and inner lip of the cup are painted with close parallel brush-strokes in iron-red under a narrow pink band.
IMG


Comments:Harrison-Hall and Krahl 1994:The arms and motto belong to the Dutch Republic. The letters ‘VOC are the cypher of the ‘Verenigde Oost Indische Compagnie’, the Dutch East India Company. The design has been accurately copied from one side of a silver coin, issued by the Company in 1728 for use in the Far East. Even the ribbed milling of the coin is imitated in the rim of the saucer and the inner rim of the cup. This type of silver coin (ducatoon) was struck and issued between 1726 and 1751 (for an example dated 1741, also in the British Museum, see BM1947.1009.156). On its reverse is a man on horseback, which led to the coin’s nickname ‘The Silver Rider’. From its foundation in 1602 until 1726 the Dutch East India Company had used regular Dutch silver dollars for its overseas trade. In 1726 it arranged – without prior governmental approval – to have coins minted with a special inscription, for trading use in the Far East. As a result of opposition by the government, however, the project had to be immediately abandoned, so that coins dated 1726 exist only as specimen drawings (Scholten, 1953). Official permission was then granted in 1728 for the minting of special ‘ducatoons’ with the company cypher and these coins first arrived in Batavia on 2nd August 1729, carried by the ship “The Coxhorn”.The tea service to which this cup and saucer belonged was arguably commissioned by the Company to commemorate the successful launch of its new coinage and may possibly have been used by its employee at the Company’s different official bases throughout the Far East. Other pieces from this service include cups and saucers in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (no. 645 & a-1907), in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands (Hong Kong, 1984, no.43), and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Le Corbeiller, 1974, no.43); a plate in the Mottahedeh collection (Howard and Ayers, 1978, vol.I, pl. 191); a plate, teapot, cup and saucer at the Musees Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels, Belgium (Jorg, 1989, no.36); a teapot without lid in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands (Lunsingh Scheurleer, 1974, no.267), and a teapot in the Africana Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa (Woodward, 1974, pl.Al).