Description:
Chinese export porcelain plate decorated in blue with the Dutch folly fort, an oval fortified fort built on a sand bar in the Pearl River opposite Canton and a 1/2 mile from the foreign factories site, which is surrounded by several Chinese small junks and seagoing junks, and the mainland with scattered buildings in the background and a small area of land and buildings in the foreground; and a stiff, stylized scale and diaper rim border and curvature popular in the 1780s (today known as a Fitzhugh border). The Pearl River at Canton was studded with small islands on which stood windowless tower-forts, most of which with flags, trees and canopies on their roofs, which were a series of defensive forts built by the Chinese in the MIng period (1368-1644) and used to protect Canton. It was guarded by 40 soldiers with 26 canons and a temple built in memory of Li Maoying, a distinguished mandarin of the Song dynasty (960-1279). By the 18th century, the forts were no longer needed because of the the advances in cannonry and had fallen into decay. The Dutch folly fort was said to have been occupied by the Dutch as early as 1655, the year of the Dutch embassy to Peking. By the end of the 18th century, a few of the forts appear to have been regularly occupied by the European trading companies and used as warehouses; they provided a place to handle and store their merchandise for export of Europe and America since they were required to anchor at Whampoa, 12 miles downriver from their factories. By about 1790, when descriptions and views of Canton began to flood the book market, these little towers - "children's castles" as they were described early in the century - were popularly known as "folly forts." The original source of the central design is not currently known although Patrick Connor illustrates a similar scene (especially the placement of the junks) done on early 18th century wall paper. A view of the Dutch folly fort is found alternating with a view of London on the rim of a Chinese export procelain armorial service made for either Eldred Lancelot Lee of Coton or his son Lancelot, circa 1733; and on punch bowl of about 1770 sold at Sotheby Parke Bernet, NY, in Nov. 1975, lot 455.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2011.3 |
