Chinese Export Bowl from "The Nanking Cargo", c. 1751

Chinese export bowl from "The Nanking Cargo", the exterior with overglaze brown, the interior painted with underglaze blue flowers. With Christie's label bearing lot number 2516.

The glaze on this bowl is an even, rich chocolate brown.

On December 18, 1751, the Dutch East India Company ship, The Geldermalsen, set sail from Canton to Amsterdam, laden with over 5,000 rolls of silk, 340 tons of tea and 200 chests of porcelain. Tragically, sixteen days later, on January 3, 1752, she hit a reef and sank in 150 feet of water. Thirty-two crew members survived, but 80 men and all her cargo were lost.

In 1985, undersea treasure hunter Michael Hatcher and his crew discovered the Geldermalsen, definitively identified by her bell. The tea and silk had long since disintegrated, but the porcelain, packed in tea and straw, lay beautifully preserved on the ocean floor for 233 years. They salvaged over 150,000 pieces which were sold in 1986 at Christies in Amsterdam in a sensational sale dubbed "The Nanking Cargo" that garnered international headlines.

Scholar Christiaan J. A. Jorg details the story in his 1986 book, "The Geldermalsen- History and Porcelain". Of the 25,921 bowls aboard the Geldermalsen, Hatcher salvaged nearly 17,000. Those with brown glaze to the exterior were decorated in only two designs- a river landscape or flowers, like the one offered here.