Code: 2864
Description: A glazed blue & white pottery shipwreck saucer showing repeated flowers and leaves (‘wild cherry’ type) with a patterned band below the rim. A couple of small rim chips and some small areas of edge roughness, otherwise condition good. A Sotheby’s auction label and the ‘CM’ reference number of the Vietnamese conservators on the base. From the Ca Mau shipwreck, Vietnam.
Size: 104 mm/4.1 ins. in diameter
Culture: Chinese, shipwreck ceramic
Date: c. 1725 A.D.
Notes: The Ca Mau shipwreck was discovered in 1998 near Ca Mau in southern Vietnam by local fishermen. The ship, an ocean-going junk, probably sank around 1725, after an onboard fire so severe that some of the porcelain fused together, en route from Canton (now Guangzhou) to the Dutch trading port of Batavia (now Jakarta) in Indonesia. Some 130,000 ceramics were salvaged from the wreck, the bulk of which, mostly tea bowls and saucers, were originally destined for European markets. On 29-31 January 2007, 76,000 of the finer pieces were auctioned by Sotheby’s Amsterdam.
