This tea cup and saucer were made around 1725 at the porcelain workshops in Jingdezhen in southern China. They come from the Ca Mau shipwreck, sunk between 1725-1735, which Vietnamese fishermen discovered off the coast of the Ca Mau Peninsula in southern Vietnam in 1998. It is believed the wreck was a Chinese merchant’s junk on its way from Canton (Guangzhou) to Batavia when it caught fire and sank around 1725. The merchant had ordered the goods on board for Dutch traders, who had limited access to China and its ports. This cup and saucer were made for the European market.
To discover more about the Ca Mau shipwreck, please visit our relevant post: The Ca Mau Shipwreck.