A Chinese export porcelain 'Swellengrebel' part-dinner service
Porcelain with underglaze blue and heightened with gold, in the centre of the plates, have been painted in grisaille and gold, inside an oval shield a gold fleur-de-lis under a coronet with above two gold stags’ horns.
Diam. 23.5 cm
Provenance:
H.A.M. Swellengrebel (born 1942) the governor’s great-great-great-great- grandson
The fleur-de-lis arms belong to the Swellengrebel family.
The Swellengrebel family originated from Nordhausen in Germany where they were first recorded in the 14th century. In 1643 Heinrich Swellengrebel became a Dutch merchant in Moscow. Several of his descendants joined the VOC, in particular in the Cape colony, but also in other Dutch-Asiatic trading posts including Canton. These plates are part of a large dinner service ordered by Hendrik Swellengrebel (Cape of Good Hope 1700-Utrecht 1760). Hendrik, son of Johannes Swellengrebel (Moscow 1671-Cape 1744) and Johanna Cruse (1682-1715) became Governor-General of the Dutch Cape in 1739 till 1750 when he left for Holland. The dinner service he had ordered arrived at the Cape shortly after he had left and was sent after him to Holland.
Hendriks mother Johanna Cruse was the sister of Wilhelm Maurits Cruse (Cape of Good Hope 1671 - Batavia 1734) whose commemorative salver is illustrated and described in our catalogue “Uit Verre Streken”, March 2013.
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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.