Inscribed within the footrim: ‘Posteleÿn Verkooping’
The scene of the ‘Posteleÿn Verkooping’ (Porcelain selling) is no. 20 from a series of engravings by Pieter Schenk titled ‘CHINEESE en VREMDEN NASIE’ printed in Amsterdam between 1682 and 1711. This, in turn, is a detail taken from a much larger engraving of the market in Bantam by Romeyn de Hooghe titled ‘KOOPHANDEL EN WAEREN’ (trade and goods) published in Simon de Vries’, Curieuse aenmerckingen der bysonderste Oost en West Indische verwonders-waerdige dingen, published by Johannes Ribbius in 1682 and dedicated to the board of the V.O.C.
‘KOOPHANDEL EN WAEREN’ by Romeyn de Hooghe
Detail of the Market in Bantam
Bantam or Banten the port near the western end of Java, Indonesia, was a major centre for trade where both the English East India Company and the Dutch V.O.C. established trading posts in the early 17th century.
The pagoda on the reverse of the cup is taken from another of the series of Pieter Schenk engravings of ‘CHINEESE en VREMDEN NASIE’. This scene is a detail taken from the right-hand half of Romeyn de Hooghe’s engraving ‘CHINEESE GASTERYEN EN PRACHT’ (Volume 3, page 180).
Romeyn de Hooghe’s engraving ‘CHINEESE GASTERYEN EN PRACHT’
There are twenty engravings in the Pieter Schenk ‘CHINEESE en VREMDEN NASIE’ series, all of which are taken from details of the engravings Romeyn de Hooghe. We know of one other porcelain cup of this series decorated and similarly inscribed with ‘Chineese fisse koopers’(The Chinese fish buyers).
Works from the workshop of Daniel and Ignaz Preissler are never signed but we can be sure of the attribution by comparing details of the buildings in the background and the treatment of the palm trees to attested examples. A teabowl and saucer in the Palazzo Madama Turin with a similar palm tree which has the arms of the Kolowrat-Schwarzenberg. Count Kolowrat was their patron in Bohemia.
References:
Pieter Schenk p. 301, cat. nr. 1772
A. L. Den Blaauwen, ‘Ceramiek met chinoiserieën naar prenten van Petrus Schenk Jr.’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 12 (1964), pp. 35-50
Acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York