Sold Ceramics - Sold Chine de commande - Western Subjects 1680-1800 - Western Designers - Pronk, Cornelis (1691-1759)

Objects 2011269 and 2011270

A pair of small bowls

China

1730-1740, over-decorated in the Netherlands, c.1740-1745.

2010269: height 44 mm (2.56 inch), diameter of rim 84 mm (5.00 inch), diameter of footring 40 mm (2.44 inch)

2010270: height 42 mm (2.56 inch), diameter of rim 85 mm (5.00 inch), diameter of footring 39 mm (2.44 inch)

Exhibited: The World at Home: Asian porcelain and Delft pottery held from 17 June 2017 to 10 March 2019 at the Groninger Museum, The Netherlands.

A pair of moulded bowls on footrings with straight underglaze brown-edged rims (jia mangkou). Decorated in underglaze blue with the 'Parasol Lady' after a design by the Dutch artist Cornelis Pronk (1691-1759) with a lady besides the water's edge with reeds, gesturing towards three birds on the ground in front of her, and her maid holding an ornate parasol. Overdecorated. in various overglaze enamels, iron-red, black and gold in The Netherlands, Amsterdams Bont c.1740-1745 with on the outside four panels, two filled with a basket filled with flowering plants, hanging ribbons and flying insects, the other two with a fisherman at a riverbank. Around the foot three concentric bands. The bottom is overdecorated with a basket filled with flowering plants, hanging ribbons and two flying insects. Round the inside rim an ornamental border.

Pronk´s the ´Parasol Lady´ desgn became very fashionable and was still in great demand when Dutch East India Company, (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC) orders for this type of porcelain declined. Simplified imitations soon appeared on the market made at the artists' initiative, where both early Chinese and Japanese versions were used as models. These bowls are an example of such a late Chinese variant.

This type of over-decorated Chinese and Japanese porcelain was called Amsterdams Bont in 18th-century Holland and varied greatly in quality. Little is known about the workshops where the overdecorating occurred. (Jörg 2002/2, p.160) It has been stated that one of the reasons that Chinese and Japanese porcelains were clobbered was to hide existing imperfections. An interesting detail in this regard on object 2011269 is that the Amsterdams Bont decorator painted his decoration on the inner wall precisely over an already existing hairline, this way making it less visible.

Remarkably the original underglaze blue Chinese decoration of Pronk's 'Parasol Lady' has not been respected at all by the Amsterdams Bont decorator. This rather coarse overdecoration in only a few colours of a basket of flowers with insects and the fisherman and a sentry house characterises most Amsterdams Bont over-decorated objects.

This underglaze blue representation of the 'Parasol Lady' over-decorated in Amsterdams Bont is extremely rare. Not a single object with this combination of a Pronk's design overdecorated in Amsterdams Bont is recorded thus far.