CHINESE ARMORIAL "PELGROM" BLUE AND WHITE PORCELAIN CHARGER,Kangxi period, circa 1710. Painted at the center with a pheasant perched on rockwork, the cavetto and everted border with four lotus amongst foliage alternating with three floral cartouches interrupted at the top with the coat of arm of Pelgrom below a figure of a Chinese man within a crest. The arms are those of Jacob Pelgrom, a Director of the Dutch East India Company who went to Batavia as a merchant in 1688, from where he went to Bengal in 1696; he was appointed Director-General of Bengal in 1701. He returned to Batavia to be head of the tax department in 1707 where he died in 1713. A dish of the same size as the present lot is illustrated by C.J.A. Jörg and J. van Campen, Chinese Ceramics in the Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, London, 1997, p.301, no. 352. Another dish, larger, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated by C. Le Corbeiller, China Trade Porcelain: Patterns of Exchange, New York, 1974, p.25, no.8. A yet larger dish from this service was in the Mottahedeh Collection, illustrated by Howard and Ayers, China for the West, London, 1978, vol. I, p.82, no.39 and smaller dish in the Hodroff Collection is illustrated by D. Howard, The Choice of the Private Trader, London, 1994, p. 45, no.12. - 14 in. diam. Estimate $3,000-5,000
PROVENANCE: Private collection, Virginia. Acquired at Sotheby's, January 30, 1985.
1 1/2 in. glaze hairline, minute glaze chips restored
