A pair of blue and white Rotterdam plates, Qing dynasty, Kangxi (1662-1722).

Purchased from Geoffrey Waters.

The Avalon Collection.

This collection, which in the main focuses on the Interregnum and Kangxi periods has been both carefully and sensitively formed over the last twenty-five years. The collector, a member of the English Oriental Ceramic Society, has assembled the collection with an eye for provenance whilst purchasing from old European collections, well-established antique dealers and at auction.

Academically, the pieces have been well researched both in terms of their symbolism and narrative themes. In many instances the imagery on the pieces has been referenced to episodes in the romantic and historic novels of Chinese mythology, which were used extensively in the decoration of seventeenth century Chinese porcelain.

For an almost identical plate see “Collecting Chinese Export Porcelain” by Elinor Gordon, Page 56, Item No 42 and The Collection of The Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Ref: C1358 – 1924. Gordon states that there are various versions of the plate in terms of the number of houses shown - three, sometimes four but very rarely five - one of the plates is rare in that it has five.

Rotterdam Riot' plates were noted in François and Nicole Hervouët and Yves Bruneau, La Porcelaine des Compagnies des Indes à Décor Occidental, Paris, 1986, cat. no. 9.35, as the earliest example of Chinese export porcelain documented with European historical and political subjects. The riots occurred in Rotterdam between September and October 1690 after a young guard, Cornelius Kosterman, accidentally killed a man while smuggling wine into the city hall to celebrate with his colleagues. Kosterman was sentenced to death by then Chief Baliff Jacob van Zuylen van Nyevelt. The public was enraged by the injustice and riots ensued. The source of the subject matter comes from a popular medal stuck by Dutch medalist Johannes Smeltzig (1656-93) after an engraving by G. van Loon.