The design depicts Neptune, the God of the Sea, standing with his triton in the center of the design with a number of other figures to his left and right with three large fish or whales at his feet. The lower section of the design depicting the sea. The border with a diaper design.
This is a Baroque design which is only found in blue and white on Chinese porcelain but a famille rose teapot with this decoration is in a private collection, it occurs on fine grained porcelain and Chinese soft-paste porcelain. Both dinner services and tea services were produced.
For a bowl with this design, see Pr. Christiaan Jorg, Phillip Wilson, Chinese porcelain in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, The Ming and Qing Dynasties, The Rijksmuseum, 1997, p. 277, plate 321.
See also Thomas V. Litzenburg Jr, Chinese Export Porcelain in the Reeves Center Collection at Washington and Lee University, Third Millennium Publishing, London, 2003, p. 196, no. 195.
A pattipan in the Princessehof Museum, Leeuwarden (The Netherlands). The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a plate in their collection (from the Helena Woolworth McCann Collection).
A large charger was in the Hervouët Collection (Sotheby’s, Fine Chinese Export Porcelain – The Hervouet Collection part II, London, 3rd November 1987, lot 870).
The image shows Neptune, the Roman god of the sea and its inhabitants. The scene illustrates an episode narrated by Virgil in the book of Aeneid, I, pages 124-143, where Neptune calms the waves with his trident after the chief goddess, Juno, intervened in the Trojan War by unleashing a storm to destroy the retreating Trojan armyThe design is after an etching called `The Realm of Neptune` by Frederick Bloemaert (c.1610-c.1669) completed between 1650-1656, after a drawing by his father Abraham Bloemaert (1566–1651). The design was very likely done for the Dutch market.
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