A Rare Japanese Export Porcelain Navel Battle Saucer c.1700.

A Rare Japanese Export Porcelain ‘Navel Battle’ Saucer, Arita Kilns, c.1700. This rare Van Frytom related design was almost certainly supplied by the Dutch East India Company, Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, and would have been made to order for the Dutch market. The ships depicted might have been the Oostindiëvaarder (East Indiamen) engaging in a battle for trade, or perhaps this scene shows a skirmish between the Dutch and British in the Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672-1674). The wars for lucrative foreign trade were fought throughout the 17th century by European nations. As far as I am aware, the origin of this design has yet to be found. Christian Jörg illustrates an extraordinary teapot from the early 18th century with two designs carefully copied from an engraving of 1670 by Olfert Dapper’s book about China (see References). This teapot relates to the present example in that they have a similar look to the ‘Van Frytom’ landscape designs, the clouds are depicted in a similar way, the spout of the teapot has a wavy blue edge, somewhat similar to the borders of the Van Frytom group. The shape of the present example looks very different from a typical saucer, it is not circular but oval, with eight lobes. Normally this form would be described as a dish, however ‘Van frytom’ saucers come in many different forms apart from circular ones. A lobed Dutch Delftware saucer painted by Fredrick Van Frytom dated to 1684, is in the Prinsenhof Museum in Delft. Of course the cups have a circular rim, as drinking from a lobbed cup would be rather unpleasant. This is the first example I have had of this rather rare design. Saucers of this type are rare, however the tea bowls that would have been used with these saucers are rarer still. SOLD