A blue and white 'Hatcher cargo' bowl, Ming dynasty, 17th Century.

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With label from The Hatcher Collection, Christies, Amsterdam, 1984.

From the Collection of Tove and Karl Emil Strømstad (born 1936), Norway. The couple built their collection over the decades. They started to collect in the early 1970's after buying the first piece, a famille rose bowl, dating from the 18th Century. Mr Strømstads work at IBM brought the couple and their family to various places around the world and they built their vast academic collection of ceramics dating from the Han dynasty to the Qing dynasty by visiting auction houses, antique dealers and antique fairs. Always striving to acquire pieces form different epoques and constantly seeking more knowledge about the pieces, the techniques and their history.

Strømstad label 8B.

For other items from this collection, se Sothebys, Asian Arts / 5000 Years. 18 April 2023. Paris. Lot no 1-39.

Colin Sheaf and Richard Kilburn, The Hatcher Porcelain Cargoes, The Complete Record, London, 1988, p. 30) Sheaf and Kilburn take a step-by-step process to deduce that the ship most likely sunk between 1643 and 1646. The inclusion of two covers for ovoid jars (similar in shape to the lot 3513) bearing inscriptions and a cyclical date corresponding to the spring of 1643 indicates that the vessel sank no earlier than the spring of 1643. The authors also note that because of the internal unrest in China at the time, trade was significantly disrupted at the fall of the Ming dynasty and studies of VOC records show that by 1646 the Manchus were preventing the free movement of trade and shipments out of Jingdezhen. The authors conclude that it is therefore very likely that the Chinese junk known as the 'Hatcher Cargo' must have sunk sometime in the years between 1643 and 1646.