Nette Megens
Head of Department, Director
Lot 33
A Chinese, Kangxi period, 'Scheveningen' dish, circa 1720
1 December 2025, 13:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£300 - £500
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A Chinese, Kangxi period, 'Scheveningen' dish, circa 1720
Painted in the Japanese style copying a Dutch Delft original in the manner of Frederick van Frytom, and depicting three figures and a bull in a coastal landscape before distant ships and buildings, within a wave-patterned border and crimped rim edge, 22cm diam
Footnotes
This design was previously known as 'Deshima Island', but the landscape and church spire clearly indicate a more Northern European origin. A variety of blue-and-white plates and other wares, both of Japanese and Chinese origin, bear this subject, with slight variations in the clouds and buildings, but always representing three figures, one with an animal on a lead. Kangxi and Arita examples are illustrated side-by-side in Soame Jenyns's Japanese Porcelain, 1965, pl.19A.
According to D.S. Howard, Choice of The Private Trader, 1994, p.44, this design is thought to date from circa 1700-1720 and may have been copied from a drawing by Frederick van Frytom (1652-1702), although the exact origins of the print or drawing are unknown. The attribution to Frytom is certainly tempting, he was after all perhaps the most accomplished of all Delftware painters, specialising in painting refined landscapes on plaques, very successful in his lifetime already.
C.J.A. Jörg, Interaction in Ceramics: Oriental porcelain and Delftware, 1984, p.110 remarks that in the Netherlands this scene is traditionally called 'View of Scheveningen'. Hetty Terwee, 'De Scheveningen-bordjes ontmaskerd?', in Antiek, XXIII, 4 April 1989, pp.494-501, has argued that it does not derive from a single print, but from a synthesis of several sources. A very rare early polychrome Meissen bowl in Japanese style bearing this scene on the interior is in the British Museum (inv. no.M&LA FRANKS 29) in addition to the Japanese example (pl.67) also illustrated by J. Ayers, O. Impey and J. V. G. Mallet, Porcelain for Palaces, 1990, no.301.
See also D.F. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Chine de Commande, 1974, pl.272 for an example in Museum De Sypesteyn, Loosdrecht, The Netherlands, and another in D. Howard and J. Ayers, China for the West, 1978, Vol.1, no.32.