A MASSIVE ENAMELLED PUNCH BOWL FOR THE AMERICAN OR ENGLISH MARKET Jiaqing period, circa 1804 Unusually enameled in sepia on the exterior of the very large bowl with two large oval landscape cartouches, one definitively of European subject matter, the other a simple rural landscape with people wearing the round-brimmed hats popular in the New World, beside a wooden bridge on three stone piers, with simple rustic buildings in the background, all beneath a gold-ground floral band at the rim. 22 1/2in (56.5cm) diam Footnotes: 嘉慶時期 約1804年 為美國或英國市場製大件棕彩描金開光風景圖潘趣酒碗 Published Cohen & Cohen, Angels & Demonslayers, Hong Kong, 2012, pp. 96-100, no. 63 出版： 倫敦Cohen & Cohen古董行，《Angels & Demonslayers》，香港，2012年，頁96-100，圖版編號63 The bridge is similar in style to the Farmer's Free (or Dyckman's) Bridge built in 1758 over Spuyten Dyvil Creek, in what is now the Bronx area of New York City. The bridge was built by John Palmer to avoid the King's Bridge, an expensive toll bridge built by the Philipse family of Westchester, and until then the only access to the livestock markets in Manhattan for farmers travelling into market from the north in Westchester County. For an extensive investigation into the history of the bridge and the relationship between Jacob Dyckman and Staats Morris see https://www.cohenandcohen.co.uk/objectdetail/772496/17665/massive-chinese-export-punchbowl-for [accessed Nov. 5, 2022] The border design of polychrome flowers on a gilt ground around the bowl's exterior is typical of Export wares of the period, but the unusual Neo-classical interior borders are after designs associated with the British architect Robert Adam. If this bowl depicts a scene in eighteenth century New York, then it is an extraordinary discovery. Bowls of this size are often called christening bowls and the decorative style of this one suggests that it was made for the American market around 1800 and would have been a special commission. A small number of other topographical bowls of this size and date are known, again mostly for the American market. It is possible therefore that this bowl was made for a family of Dutch settlers in New York who wished to acknowledge their origins while also celebrating their new home, now an independent republic. References: Howard, 1997, p. 13, where he illustrates a large Masonic bowl dated 1812 which has an inner rim border band similar in style to the outer rim on this bowl; Schiffer, 1980, p. 37, a bowl with a view of New York, circa 1803, and p. 167, a bowl with an image of Pennsylvania Hospital, circa 1805, and also p. 149, a bowl with the 'Surrender of Burgoyne', circa 1850, now in the White House Collection; and Reier, 1977, The Bridges of New York. The second scene he shows depicts shops and a fortified town on a cliff top with Dutch or South German architecture.