Ref: U735
Archive item - not for sale
Chinese Pronk famille rose ‘Doctor’s Visit’ plate, circa 1738-40, decorated in the centre with a design by Cornelis Pronk with three doctors seated around a low table of European design on which rests a large kraak porcelain dish, with a fourth bald-headed and simply dressed figure standing behind them, all within a fenced garden with a peacock, and a parrot within the branches of a flowering tree, within a border of six cartouches of fish interspersed by water-birds and diaper, the underside with yellow trellis-pattern ; diameter: 8 3/4 in. in. (22.4 cm.). This scene is after a design by the Dutch artist Cornelis Pronk (1691-1754) who was commissioned by the VOC in 1734 to produce designs Western designs for Chinese porcelain, this is the second of four drawings and was commissioned in 1735. However, this design was not produced until 1737, and in view of high cost of transferring the design onto porcelain, only six famille rose dinner services were ordered and fifty-four `mantelpiece sets' produced (although it was also executed in blue and white). According to records, the first order was sent to the Netherlands on the Hogersmilde at the end of 1738, and the second (via Batavia) on the Popkensburg in March 1739. A second simplified version, which eliminated the standing figure, was sent to Canton in 1739. For further information see Howard and Ayers, ’China for the West’, p.294, and Jörg, ‘Pronk Porcelain’, p.26. SOLD
