Author: JORG, C.J.A.
Title: The Geldermalsen: History and Porcelain
Description: Kemper Publishers, Groningen. 1986, 1st Edition. (ISBN: 9070295296). Hardcover, with dust jacket. Book, English text; Hardcover (with dust jacket); 21 x 29 cm; 0.8 kg; 124 pages with colour and black and white illustrations.; Used with signs of wear on the dust jacket, namely some wear signs and scratches on the front cover, spine and back cover. Interior in very good condition.; "In December 1985 I received a telephone call from Christie's in Amsterdam. Michael Hatcher had found a new ship with over 150,000 pieces of porcelain. Most of it was already in Amsterdam for an auction in '86. Perhaps I could come over and have a look? I'm not likely to forget the visit I paid to Amsterdam shortly after that phone call. We went to a shed in the dock area and there, on wooden racks, I saw endless rows of porcelain Cups, saucers, plates, bowls.. stacks and stacks of them. This is how it must have looked in the days of Dutch East India Company, I thought. Just a warehouse full of porcelain, in all shapes and sizes, merchandise ready for auction. The warehouse of a large present-day department store looks exactly the same racks of simple crockery meant for the general public. For a little while it was very difficult to see 18th century Chinese porcelain as something exclusive and rare. After this first impression, excitement and curiosity got the upper hand. What I saw here corresponded nicely to the picture I had formed of such a cargo when writing my thesis Porcelain and the Dutch China Trade. The records had given me an impression of the type of porcelain the Dutch East India Company was shipping around the middle of the 18th century, and now I was seeing the real thing with my very own eyes. But if this find had really come from a Dutch ship, then which East Indiaman could it be? The most obvious candidate was the Geldermalsen, which had sunk on her homeward voyage in 1752. Christie's had already scheduled the auction for the end of April. I realized that it was absolutely essential to study this find before the pieces would get scattered all over the world. If this ship could really be identified as the Geldermalsen, a unique documentation would be possible: never before had such a complete cargo of porcelain been recovered from a voc wreck. Here for the first time we would really get a complete picture: which quality did the voc purchase, what varieties and sizes were there? At last I would be able to fill in all the gaps which remain in a story when one is studying records. In short: there was a lot of work to be done. It is amazing that so many data turned up. The ship's bell bearing the voc monogram and the year in which the ship was build. Gold, which was part of the cargo for only a short period. Coarse porcelain which was not intended for Europe but for the Cape, and which only went along on the return ships in 1752, while in all the other years the Cape received its supplies via Batavia." excerpt from the preface by Christian Jorg, February 1986. Very Good/Dust Jacket Included.

Keywords: 9070295296 the voc,canton 1751,shipwreck,the geldermalsen,the cargo,tea,gold,porcelain,wreck,shipwreck,geldermalsen Asian Art Chinese Art


See more books from our catalog: Chinese Ceramics