A Chinese Dutch-market export porcelain armorial plate, Qing dynasty, 18th century.

The arms are of de Heere of Middelburg, Goes and Dordrecht an old family of this region. One early ancestor was the 16th century painter Lucas de Heere (1534-84) who worked in England and possibly trained Marcus de Gheerhaerts the Younger and Robert Peake the Elder. Another with more relevant VOC credentials was Gerrit de Heere, Governor of Ceylon for the VOC in 1697; and other family members were involved in the VOC in Asia and South Africa in the early 18th century.

These arms are first recorded accollée for Jan de Heere and his (unidentified) wife in 1704. They are first recorded as the impaled form (seen on this vessel) on a seal in Middleburg in 1735 as belonging to Johan de Heere, probably the son of Jan. He was married in about 1730 to Maria Eversdijk and died before 1749, leaving a son Huijbert and a daughter Susanna.

Huijbert Johan de Heere (1731-1777) is almost certainly the man who ordered this service. He left Holland in 1749, as a junior merchant for the VOC on the East Indiaman Gustaaf Willem, arriving in Batavia. By 1751 he was a supercargo at Mocha and resident of Gamron, Persia. In 1752 he moved to Bantam, Java, and then from 1754 to 1763 he was in Palembang (Sumatra), where in 1758 he married Jacoba Frederica Nemegheer (1733-1798). He returned to Goes (Holland) in 1763 with three young sons Jan, Pieter and Willem on the East Indiaman Nieuwland, probably bringing these porcelains with him.