A Large Chinese Blue and White Kraak Bowl

A Large Chinese Blue and White Kraak Bowl.

Of round shape with slightly foliate edges, steep sides and a short straight foot, decorated in bright underglaze blue with on the exterior large panels, bordered by bands of scroll-work and decorated within alternately with scenes of either figures in conversation or walking by a river with European houses in the background and foreground and ducks on the water or with scenes of  a boy making an offering to a robed gentleman, the offering different in each version of the scene, the large panels divided by narrow panels decorated with single Dutch flowers, tulips or Iznik style flowers, the scenes repeated on the interior of the bowl  and with a central medallion decorated with a similar river scene, the base glazed. 

Period: Chongzheng  1635-1650.
 

Footnote:  
For an almost identical example see Maura Rinaldi, Kraak Porcelain – A Moment in the History of Trade, Bamboo Publishing Ltd, London 1989, pl. 203, p. 164. A bowl with almost identical decoration is in the Arnhem Museum, and another example can be found in the Victoria & Albert Museum (252-1889) where it is dated 1630-45.  For another almost identical example see Christiaan J.A. Jörg in collaboration with Jan van Campen, Chinese Ceramics in the Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, published by Phillip Wilson and the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, London and Amsterdam, 1997, pl. 49, p. 64. For a similar large-size Kraak bowl with panels of figures see Oriental Blue and White by Sir Harry Garner (Faber, 1954), illustration 63b, diameter 14.5”, in the Victoria and Albert Museum. See also Plate 41, p 109 L’Odyssee de la Porcelaine Chinoise (Collections du Musee National de Ceramique, Sevres, et du Musee National Adrien Dubouche, Limoges, 2003). In Rinaldi (1989) Kraak Porcelain: A Moment in the History of Trade, two further very similar examples can be found on p.163, pl.202, and p.164, pl.203.  These bowls, dated by Rinaldi to 1635-50, feature the characteristic alternating panel decoration of this period. The example on pl.203, which belongs to Fonation Custodia Institut, has almost identical decoration, including the scene in the centre of the bowl.

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This object is eligible for a Certificate of BADA Provenance

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