Live Auction 3025The Decorative Arts Sale incl. Fine Paintings
A Chinese verte-imari 'Governor Duff' saucer-dish
Lot 309 VARIOUS PROPERTIES

A Chinese verte-imari 'Governor Duff' saucer-dish

CIRCA 1720-30

Closed27 March 2013

Price Realised

EUR 2,125

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A Chinese verte-imari 'Governor Duff' saucer-dish
Circa 1720-30
Painted in shades of iron-red, sepia, and gilt with a touch of green, the centre depicting a couple in European 18th Century dress standing beside a dog below a maple tree in a fenced garden, surrounded by a narrow cell-pattern border reserved with floral cartouches at the rim
25.4 cm. diam.

Specialist note

The couple depicted on the dish is often referred to as Governor Duff and his wife, which is suggested to be the name the Chinese gave Diederick Duiver (1676-1740, Governor of the Dutch East India Company from 1729-1731), as they were unable to pronounce his name correctly. The same couple has also been described as Louis XIV and Mme de Montespan or simply a Frisian couple. For a further discussion on Duff, see D.F. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Chinese Export Porcelain, London, 1974, p. 137 and fig. 203 for a similar example in the Rijksmuseum.