A Chinese export porcelain 'Sichterman' sugar bowl and cover or 'Kandijpot'
Both the bowl and the lid decorated in iron-red, blue, yellow and green enamels and gold, showing a squirrel in profile eating a nut, surrounded by bamboo and floral sprays, the bowl restored.
W. 13.7 x H. 11 cm
The shape of this Chine de commande bowl and cover copies a European model sugar bowl and belonged probably to one of the first of altogether eight services ordered by Jan Albert Sichterman (1692-1764), and sent to the Netherlands from about 1730 onwards on board Dutch East Indiamen, but also on Swedish, English and Ostend ships. Jan Albert Sichterman was the richest man of Groningen after his return in 1744 from the East Indies and was called “de Koning van Groningen”. After a duel for which Jan Albert, as a soldier, would probably have been convicted in a court-martial, he had to escape the country and in 1716 sailed for the East Indies. There he had a brilliant career in the Dutch factories on the Ganges river in Bengal. First in Houghly from 1717 till 1723, then as head of the factory in Cassimbasar from 1725 till 1734 and finally as Director of Bengal in Houghly till 1744. In 1721 he had married Sibylla Volkera Sadelijn (1699-1781) in Houghly, daughter of Jacob Sadelijn who was Jan Albert’s predecessor as Director of Bengal, and Anna Françoise Pelgrom, daughter of Jacob Pelgrom (see item 39), Director of Bengal from 1701 till 1705. Jan Albert set up a silk and cotton weaving mill and had a significant impact on the trade of cotton and silk fabrics to the Netherlands. However, his fortune he made in private (illegal) trade and smuggling. After his death in 1764, most of his belongings were auctioned including a total of over 4000 pieces of porcelain, including probably about 400 pieces of armorial porcelain.
Related objects
A pink, yellow and green enamelled porcelain VOC teapot and saucer
A rare large Japanese Arita blue and white porcelain 'V.O.C' dish
A pink, yellow and green enamelled porcelain VOC plate
Executed in rose-pink, yellow, and soft blue-green enamels, this design follows a silver ducatoon of 1728 in almost every aspect, with even the rim of the plate imitating the ribbed milling of the coin. On a shield is a crowned rampant lion, holding in his left paw a bunch of seven arrows symbolising the seven provinces of the United Netherlands, and in his right paw, a sword is shown supported by two crowned rampant lions. Below the shield is the monogram of the VOC, the Dutch East India Company, above the date 1728, and around it is the heraldic motto of the Dutch Republic CONCORDIA RES PARVAE CRESCUNT (by unity small things grow). The first ducatoon, or zilveren rijder, on which the design of this plate was based, arrived in Canton, China, on the 2nd of August 1729 with the Coxhorn, the first VOC ship to sail straight to Canton and not by way of Batavia. It arrived in Amsterdam in 1730 with the ordered porcelain in this design. This is an early example of the so-called Chine de Commande porcelain. Although the Cantonese artists had a zilveren rijder as an example, they didn’t really understand the design, giving the lions grimacing human faces and cape-like manes. They also didn’t understand the Latin letters, since the R ends truncated, the V is an inverted A, and the E looks more like a Chinese character. The only Chinese porcelain known with this design is a tea set, comprising cup-and-saucers and a theapot. For a cup and saucer, see: Uit Verre Streken, June 2017, no. 49. The Dutch likely took a cup-and-saucer from China to Japan, ordering larger plates like the one present. Until recently, these plates were attributed to Chinese kilns, but they are more likely Japanese. This solves the debate on whether these dishes are modern Chinese forgeries. One has been found in an old Japanese collection and is listed in a catalogue, which makes the latter impossible. The enamel's hues and the porcelain's colour are, indeed, more Japanese than Chinese.