Description:
Chinese export porcelain round saucer decorated in the Famille rose palette of purple, rose, green, iron red, black, and gilding. The well has a gilt crown over a large heraldic image of a wreath and a rising grey pelican clutching its young in a green basket-like nest, in a triangle of green ferns or palm branches and festoon with pink flowers, entwined with two banderoles - the upper pink one inscribed "WELHELMINA BOONHOFF" and the lower one, "NICOLAAS BOONHOFF." The rim is edged in gilt and an iron-red feather band, and decorated with garland swags.The Boonhoff arms are not recorded and must have been copied from another family; there are two other known services with the same crest but different inscriptions. The Boonhoff family, living in Leiden from the late 17th century, belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. The plates with the Boonhoff inscriptions must have been ordered by Nicolas Boonhoff (1735-1810) of Leiden, the son of the surgeon Joannes Boonhoff and his second wife Marijtje Kock. His half-sister, Wilhelmina Boonhoff (b.1730) was the daughter of Joannes Boonhoff and his first wife, Fransisca van Hoovan. Nicolaas was already married when he ordered this commemorative service, this must have been intended for his, probably unmarried, sister rather than for his own household, and perhaps made on the occasion of a birthday. Nicolaas married twice: Maria Josepha van Eijk (1733-1801) in 1769, and Elizabeth Cornelia Snarenberg (b.1757) in 1801. By the late 1760s Nicolaas was a bookkeeper, and about the time he placed this order, he was appointed trustee of the Roman Catholic Poor Relief, the Orphanage, and the Old Men's Home in Leiden on 6 April 1779. He was also a clerk on behalf of the institution with a salary of HFL 100 a year; three years later he gave up this payment. In 1792 he resigned because his sight was deteriorating. He lived for 18 years more and had a tabaks-affaire or tobacco shop, at the Gangetje close to the Hogewoerdsbrug and Steenschur, which was continued by his widow after 1810.
Subjects:
Pottery; Enamel and enameling; glaze (coating by location); polychrome; Porcelain Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+63.033 |
