A RARE FAMILLE ROSE ARMORIAL RETICULATED SMALL OVAL DISH FROM THE OFFICIAL SERVICE FOR THE HONOURABLE ENGLISH EAST INDIA COMPANY Jiaqing period, circa 1805 Centrally enameled principally in iron-red, black, pink and lavishly gilt with the large arms of the Company above the motto Auspicio regis et senatus Angliae, within a wide pierced H-pattern border and narrow band of petal lappets at the rim. 10 1/2in (27cm) wide Footnotes: 嘉慶時期 約1805年 粉彩描金不列顛東印度公司玲瓏橢圓小盤 Published: Cohen & Cohen, Baroque & Roll, Antwerp, 2015, pp. 148-149, no. 91 出版： 倫敦Cohen & Cohen古董行，《Baroque & Roll》，安特衛普，2015年，頁148-149，圖版編號91 The Honorable English East India Company had been re-established by British Act of Parliament in 1698, and subsequently came to incorporate after 1709 an earlier English East India Company (with a different coat of arms) which had been incorporated by Queen Elizabeth I in 1600 and active from its base at Bantam in Java from circa 1600. The arms on this rare dish are copied from the bookplate of the second, or so-called 'New East India Company', trading from 1709. From this Javanese 'factory' (trading post), British merchants sparred fiercely with both the Dutch as these two mutually antagonistic European Protestant monopolist companies sought to create Asian trading routes in the face of aggressive hostility from the (Catholic) Spanish and Portuguese trading empires already established respectively at bases in Luzon and Macao. Active participation in the maritime 'China trade' in the 18th century could, with a modicum of luck, be an exceptionally profitable commercial venture. Company directors, ships' captains and supercargoes, joint stock freelance investors and indeed the Company officials all stood to make very handsome profits if a ship returned safely from Asia to offer its valuable and perishable cargoes onto the London retail market run by Western specialist dealers through the very regular late Spring auctions of tea, spices, textiles and ceramics at auction in East India House, Leadenhall Street. According to the distinguished genealogist (and dealer in Chinese armorial porcelain) David Sanctuary Howard, this service was ordered for use by East India Company officers in India, possibly to celebrate the bi-centenary either of the 'New Company' or of the merger ten years later. See Howard (1974), where the author records that this official service was used by the Company in Bombay and Madras and that some Governors were known to have brought parts of it back to England when they completed their term of office. It must have been an immense service (and special commission); or more likely it comprised several services of the same design. It is interesting to note that the small British coat of arms in one quadrant (the upper dexter) was only adopted in 1801, giving this service a very clear starting date for its creation. The border pattern is inspired by a similar one in a pattern book of 1770 used by the industry-leading Staffordshire potter Josiah Wedgwood, which was used on the factory's innovatory creamware body for several decades. References: an identical dish in the Victoria and Albert Museum, no. 335J-1898, purchased in 1898 for £13 10s, which is illustrated by Kerr & Mengoni, 2011, p. 9, plate 1; Howard, 1974, p. 774, for more details of items now dispersed from this service; and Le Corbeiller, 1974, No. 51, p. 120 for two similar dishes. This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: ¤ ¤ Without reserve