Sold Ceramics - Sold Shipwreck Porcelains - The Diana Cargo, 1817 - Page 1

Objects 2011186 and 2011191

A glazed toy duck and toy duckling

China

c.1816

Mark: Shop/makers mark on the belly of large duck.

Provenance: The Diana Cargo sale, Christie's Amsterdam, 6-7 March 1995

2011186: height 67 mm (2.79 inch), dimensions 123 mm (4.84 inch) x 65 mm (2.56 inch)

2011191: height 37 mm (1.46 inch), dimensions 43 mm (1.69 inch) x 29 mm (1.14 inch)

Glazed toy duck and duckling each moulded with naturalistic legs, wing and tail feathers and impressed circular eye, under a straw glaze with scattered green and brown spots. Marked on the belly of large duck. with a shop/makers mark: 陶 = Pottery. (not ceramic) and 合 = combine; being together; close. (source: S. Fan) On both toy duck and toy duckling the original 'Christie's Diana Cargo March 1995'' sale lot 942 label proving they have been two of four toy ducks and four toy ducklings sold in lot 942.

Ball states that of the 877 terracotta statues, animal statue predominated. There were crowing cocks, seated dogs, paddling ducks, horses and buffalo. The finest one of all was the boy on a buffalo. Amazingly, the paint had survived on many of them and apart from their desirability for reasons of religion or superstition, they would make attractive display pieces too. The objects were especially popular with the more superstitious southern Chinese communities in Guandong, Fujian, and Zhejiary provinces; and little secular groups. Figures were normally carried as "private" cargo, not in bulk; but there is evidence that there were several hundred on Diana, so maybe the Madrassi principals thought it was worth experimenting with the local markets in India. The Chinese never regarded ceramic sculptures as a serious art form. Unlike Western potters, who were excited by trying to recreate in a ceramic medium the achievements of the European stone and wood sculptural tradition, the Chinese made pottery and porcelain figures as a very cheap substitute only for other media like stone, wood or even ivory and soapstone) in Fujian province'. Ceramic figures never formed the bulk part of a cargo coming back from the West+ except for a brief period a century before Diana, when blanc de Chine figures became sufficiently popular for large quantities to be shipped from a temporary entrepôt at Amoy. Apart from that moment, Diana tells us, more than any other excavated ship's cargo, about what figures the Chinese were producing, and what was popular abroad even when largely divorced from their original context. (Ball 1995, pp.145-149)

In total 74 glazed toy ducks and 88 glazed toy ducklings were sold divided over the lots: 919-944. (Amsterdam 1995)

Condition: The duck has a chip to the tip of her beak, the duckling has some minor firing flaws.

References:

Amsterdam 1995, lot 919-944

Ball 1995, pp.145-149

Price: Sold.