A PAIR OF BLUE AND WHITE OVAL BUTTER TUBS, COVERS AND STANDS Qianlong period, circa 1760 Each with a slightly flaring body and lightly domed cover with mushroom finial and deep stand, painted in rich blue with a simply robed traveler and his companion approaching the arched gateway to a pavilion, with mist-shrouded mountain peaks ranged majestically across the far horizon. the stands: 6in (15cm) wide (2). Footnotes: 乾隆時期 約1760年 青花橢圓牛油蓋盒托盤組一對 Butter tubs were an unusual element in very many East India cargoes returning from China in the 18th century, the peak period of the 'China Trade'. All kinds of standard European-taste dishes, plates, tureens and other shaped vessels formed a substantial part of most Company's own large-volume, non-perishable commercial cargoes, as by now these Export porcelains were automatically needed for a conventional European dining table. Butter tubs and coves were salvaged in 1985 from the wreck of the Dutch VOC ship Geldermalsen, which sank in January 1752 during what should have been a relatively uneventful journey home from its temporary Chinese mooring in Whampoa Reach on the Pearl River, downstream from the trading wharves along the Canton waterfront. They were salvaged in two shapes, oval and circular. Both shapes imitated rustic Dutch wooden butter tubs of an earlier date. 'Circular porcelain butter tubs accompanied by matching saucers' appeared until 1745 in shipping Requirements issued by the VOC to its factors in Asia. Oval ones, which according to the Requirements would come without saucers, appeared only in the lists from 1750. The covers of the tubs found on the Geldermalsen even more clearly imitated their wooden prototypes; the covers were fitted with a thin long final resembling a wooden carrying handle, rather than the more elegant 'mushroom cap' finials on the present pair, which date from perhaps twenty year later. References: see Colin Sheaf and Richard Kilburn, The Hatcher Porcelain Cargoes, 1988, pls. 176-178, pp. 136-137 for three variants of the type recovered intact from the Geldermalsen, but none apparently shipped with matching under dishes unlike the present lot. This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: ¤ ¤ Without reserve