Tek Sing Bowl Decorated with Landscape Scene

£ 85.00

A circular, dark blue and white bowl perched on a ring foot. This vessel is decorated on the sides, on one side depicting a landscape scene and on the other suspended floral and foliage motives. Some encrustations to the inside of the bowl due to the long exposure to sea water.

Date: Circa early 19th century AD
Period: Qing Dynasty
Provenance: From the 1822 Tek Sing shipwreck that was discovered by Michael Hatcher in 1999.
Condition: Fine condition. Glaze dull due to prolonged contact with sea water, encrustations to the inside.

SOLD

Product Code: CS-54
Category: Tags: , ,

It was at the port of Amoy that the Tek Sing – or True Star – a large junk, was moored. Bound for Jakarta, she was loaded with precious cargo: porcelain, silks, spices, and medicines. There was so much cargo that some was even strapped to the outside of the ship’s hull. Antique porcelain from a wreck can be worth more than its weight in gold, so the treasure hunters were keen to have the haul examined by experts. They were surprised to find that the porcelain originated from many different places and dates. Some pieces must have been around 100 years old when they were loaded. Tek Sing’s porcelain cargo had been packed so tightly that even after nearly two hundred years under the silt and coral, many examples were in almost pristine condition. On May 12, 1999, Michael Hatcher discovered the wreck of the Tek Sing in an area of the South China sea, north of Java. His crew raised about 350,000 pieces of the ship’s cargo in what is described as the largest sunken cache of Chinese porcelain ever recovered.

To discover more about the Tek Sing shipwreck, please visit our relevant post: The Tek Sing Shipwreck.

Dimensions W 14.2 cm
Region

East Asia (Far East)

Pottery

Blue and White Porcelain

Glaze

Colourless Glaze

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