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Lot Essay
The present plate belongs to a service commissioned for the Lee family of Coton in Shropshire, though it remains unknown whether it was intended for Eldred (1650-1734) and Isabella Lee (1650-1737), or for their son, Lancelot (1677-1767). Ronald Fuchs, discussing the soup-plate from the service now preserved in the Reeves Collection, notes the family's connections to the British East India Company, and proposes that the service may have been commissioned for the Lee family by Isabella's uncle, Richard, or her brother, Harry. See R. Fuchs II, 50 Treasures: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Reeves Collection of Ceramics at Washington and Lee, Lexington, 2017, pp. 26-27.
For a further discussion of the arms, see D. S. Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain, London, 1974, p. 329, no. J6. Howard points out that the finely painted topographical scenes clearly depict St. Paul's Cathedral and London Bridge, and the view of Canton is just downstream from the Hongs. Fuchs, in his discussion of the soup-plate, identifies a print source for the London scenes, writing that the view, "with an ocean-going square rigger below London Bridge, is almost certainly taken from the illustration on the title page of The London Magazine, a monthly magazine covering current events, arts, and literature, which started publication in 1732". For further examples from the service, see the soup-plate at the Winterthur Museum, Delaware (accession no. 2000.0061.020) and the similar plate in the Helena Woolworth McCann Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated by J. G. Phillips, China-Trade Porcelain, Cambridge, 1956, p. 13, fig. 7.
For a further discussion of the arms, see D. S. Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain, London, 1974, p. 329, no. J6. Howard points out that the finely painted topographical scenes clearly depict St. Paul's Cathedral and London Bridge, and the view of Canton is just downstream from the Hongs. Fuchs, in his discussion of the soup-plate, identifies a print source for the London scenes, writing that the view, "with an ocean-going square rigger below London Bridge, is almost certainly taken from the illustration on the title page of The London Magazine, a monthly magazine covering current events, arts, and literature, which started publication in 1732". For further examples from the service, see the soup-plate at the Winterthur Museum, Delaware (accession no. 2000.0061.020) and the similar plate in the Helena Woolworth McCann Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated by J. G. Phillips, China-Trade Porcelain, Cambridge, 1956, p. 13, fig. 7.