Rare, small blue and white porcelain vase, China, circa 1690

Rare, small blue and white porcelain vase, China, circa 1690
ovoid body painted with shaped reserves each containing a floral composition; Domed lid with stylized bud socket, h. cm. 15.Prov.: formerly Christie's Amsterdam, The Wung Tau Cargo sale, Amsterdam, 7-8 April 1992, n. 415, as per label under the base.In 1989, a Vietnamese fisherman made the serendipitous discovery of the 'Vung Tau Cargo' while trawling the seabed off the southern coast of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The cargo was recovered by the state-owned Vietnam Salvage Corporation; the recovered contents were later sold by Christie's Amsterdam in a two-day sale of 1011 lots on 7 and 8 April 1992. The vessel was an Asian merchant vessel which had been burned to the waterline as it was almost certainly headed to Indonesia from China. Batavia (now Jakarta) was the center of the huge Dutch East India Company (VOC) where a mixed expedition would be prepared for the return journey to Amsterdam or elsewhere along the Dutch coast.There was little to date the wreck, other than some coins from the reign of the Kangxi Emperor (1662-1722) and an ink stick with the cyclical date corresponding to 1690 AD. In fact, the best proof lies in the study of the porcelain itself which must have been produced within a decade of 1683 AD, the year that ceramic historians consider the official date of the reopening of the Chinese kilns in Jingdezhen after the civil war that had upset the industry since 1630.