1684 A Very Rare Amsterdam Bont Bowl with a Rococo Fete Galante Scene

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Description:

1684 A Very Rare Amsterdam Bont Bowl with a Rococo Fete Galante Scene

Diameter: 146mm approx
Period:1730-1740
Code. 200
Provenance:

– De Zwaan Veilinghuis 2026

– Collection Schouten

– Christies lot 673 -2048

 

Bowl with Gallant Couple and Bagpiper
Chinese porcelain, c. 1730-40, overdecorated in the Netherlands (Amsterdam or Delft). So-called “Amsterdams Bont” porcelain.

This Chinese export porcelain bowl was richly overdecorated in the Netherlands with colourful enamels in the distinctive Amsterdams Bont style. It depicts an elegantly dressed couple strolling through a garden, accompanied by a bagpiper. This scenesbelong to the visual language of the Rococo, symbolising courtship, love, and fertility, inspired by French artists such as Boucher, Lancret, and Pater. These fashionable motifs were widely appreciated by both Orangist and republican elites in the Dutch Republic. In an Orangist context, however, they may also have acquired an additional dynastic meaning through associations with the marriage of William IV and Anne of Hanover. Rather than literal portraits, the figures are best understood as gallant types whose symbolism could be interpreted on several levels—as fashionable decoration, as an emblem of marriage and domestic harmony, an erotic layer, and, for some contemporaries, as a subtle expression of loyalty to the House of Orange. The Orange clothes might not be a coincidence.