Punch bowl: C.2415-1928

Maker(s)

Factory: Greek A Factory
Proprietor: Eenhoorn, Samuel van

Entities

• Punch bowl

Categories

• Tin-glazed earthenware
• Dutch Delftware

Description

Tin-glazed earthenware painted in blue in Chinese style

Earthenware, thrown, tin-glazed, and painted in blue. Circular with deep curved sides sloping outwards towards the rim, and standing on a footring. The outside is decorated with Chinese figure subjects: a prisoner wearing the cang, two beggars rubbing their foreheads together and a third with smoke issuing from his head, aman carrying a book under his arm attended by a porter with packages slung from a pole, and a man holding a sword attended by a man with a parasol. Between the figures are groups of trees and rocks. On the inside, are a lady and a boy with a bird in a garden.

Notes

History note: Captain I. L. Asherton of the Antiquarian Guild Limited, 4 Carlton Street, Regent Street, London, SW1, from whom bought on 2 July 1924 for £4.10; Dr J.W.L. Glaisher, FRS, Trinity College, Cambridge

Legal notes

Dr J.W.L. Glaisher Bequest

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1928-12-07) by Glaisher, J. W. L., Dr

Dating

17th Century, Late
Circa 1678 - 1686

Note

The prisoner and beggars were copied in reverse from illustrations in Jan Nieuhoff's 'Het Gezandtschap der Neerlandtsche Oost-Indische Compagnie aan den Grooten Tartarischen Cham, den tegenwoordigen Keizer van China (Amsterdam, 1665). The English translation, by John Ogilby tells on pp. 170-1, 'Some . . use another Art of Begging, which is to knock their heads together like distracted persons, so that Spectators would believe their Brains were ready to flye out, or themselves fall Dead upon the ground . . . There is also another sort of Beggars here, that set fire to a combustible kind of stuff upon their Heads, which they suffer to burn there with excessive pain and torment till they have extorted some Charity from the transient Company with their howling and crying, enduring very great misery all that while.'

School or Style

Chinese