China - Lot 17

China Porcelain wedding plate with grisaille decoration and colored flesh in the center of two spouses surrounded by deities and musicians under a dome bearing the inscription SEMPER AMOR PRO TE FIRMISSIMUS ATQUE FIDELIS, the columns surmounted by coats of arms, gold lace motifs on the rim. 18th century, Qianlong period (1735-1796). D. 23 cm. The coats of arms are those of Johannes van Bergen van der Grijp (1713-1784), principal merchant and chief administrator of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Malacca (Malaysia), and Elisabeth Arnoudina van Beaumont Cornelis (1721-1759), daughter of Cornelius van Beaumont (1690-1724), principal merchant of the Cape Colony, who married in Batavia on November 18, 1736 and returned to the Netherlands in 1749. Other plates from this service are in the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, the British Museum, the Boymans-van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, the Musée Royal d'Art et d'Histoire in Brussels and the Hodroff Collection. See Howard and Ayers, China for the West, 1978, no. 391, p. 394 and Hervouët and Bruneau, La Porcelaine des Compagnies de Indes à décor occidental, 1986, no. 13.87, p. 316. Expert : Cyrille FROISSART