Ref: Y839
Archive item - not for sale
Chinese blue and white 'Hatcher Cargo' ginger jar and drum-shaped cover, Shunzhi period (1644-46), decorated with two leaf-shaped reserves containing a qilin and a phoenix against a cracked-ice ground with scrolling foliage and lotus flowers, the cover with scrolling stylized foliage, lotus flowers and lozenges, with Christie's label to base, height: 10 1/8in., 25.8cm. Provenance: From the Hatcher Collection; sold at Christie's Amsterdam 12-13th June 1984. The Hatcher Cargo (1643-1646) was recovered from the wreck of a Chinese junk in the South China seas port of Batavia (today Jakarta), where Chinese cargoes were transhipped to Dutch East Indiamen for their journey to Europe. In 1983 Captain Michael Hatcher and his crew brought up around 25,000 pieces of unbroken porcelain from the Hatcher junk, many of which were sold at Christies Amsterdam. A date for the cargo was established by the existence in the find of two pieces with the Chinese cyclical date of 1643. Two similar ginger jars are illustrated in Sheaf, Colin and Kilburn, Richard, The Hatcher Porcelain Cargoes: The Complete Record, (Christie’s Ltd. 1988), p. 51, pl. 63. SOLD
