@bartholin 

John,

Thank you for the kind offer, I will certainly take you up on that.  We definitely need to meet up too.  I wonder if you have any reference to this armorial dish, which I think belonged to Sir Robert Eden, First Baronet of Maryland.... I have found no others, Kind of a stumper for me.  It is in horrible condition.

Polly Latham has wonderful examples, I especially love the green and orange Fitzhugh.

Also, a good library is the very best resource one can have, even with the depths of the internet, there are many things that are not to be found but only in books.

Jeremy

Wonderful! I'll send you it in a pdf email sometime this evening if I can get to it, or by Friday.

I will say off the bat, I have not seen this armorial before. My copy of Howard's Chinese Armorial Porcelain Volume II is being shipped at the moment, so I'll take a look in there once it arrives. Unfortunately, I have decided not to acquire Volume I, where it may be referenced. It will be republished in color in the distant future so I am waiting for that to come out instead. I'll update here if I'm able to find anything when it arrives 😀 If anything, CAP is also useful for its precise dating and border comps., so we can compare the border used here to narrow it and see if the range falls within the lifetime of the first baronet, or if was one of his subsequent heirs. I'll let you know. 

Also forgot to add - that's a beautiful plate. I love the border. Certainly one I would consider desirable for these armorials. 

I agree on Polly Latham. She wasn't recommended by Peter, but Nicolas Fournery recommended her to me. Her selection is unrivalled for American market export pieces. I'm currently in the works on acquiring a piece from her, and I think my favourite so far. 

@bartholin 

Looking forward to seeing your next acquisition...

This one I saw it and it had a bunch of over paint on it, and was in obviously terrible condition, the lady at the shop knows me well and had set it aside, $5 later I had in the car and was speeding home.  I think I posted it a while back, right after getting it.  It is interesting that the spear point border is very similar to that punch bowl with the hunting scene so I suspect it also dates to the 1770s or so.

It came out of a house in Annapolis, and my understanding is Sir Eden had all of his belongings confiscated by Maryland when he fled to England at the outbreak of the revolution.  I went through the inventory they took ten years later and didn't see his porcelain listed but that doesn't mean much since many years had passed, and he accused them until his death  of stealing things from him.

I will say the epoxy they used on it is very much not reversible, though I have yet to try Methylese Chloride as it is hard to work with safely.

Jeremy

What a find! And what a story! I quickly read through his bio earlier, and he would certainly fit within the timeline of the decorations. I'm sure there is info out there on this since it would've had to have come on a British ship to one of the historical port cities... probably Baltimore but possibly Philadelphia. Some leads could be letters/EIC logs/ship logs/etc. Just my initial thoughts. I'll take a look later.

@bartholin 

John,

You may enjoy glancing at this as its a pretty interesting read, and the last part,p. 172, is an inventory of his belongings that were confiscated, lots of porcelain, and does mention 24 soup plates on 176.   Also his Arms are on his grave on page 149, and on his portrait on 153 and page 155.

I believe he left out of Annapolis harbor.

Jeremy

PDF at the bottom

https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/21773

@bartholin Polly Latham has great pieces. In what price category are they? Several thousand $ or lower?

@shinigami 

Some are less than $1000 but the majority I think are over, especially high are the rarer variations of standard patterns.

Jeremy

Oh no, I meant the dinner service. Sorry, I was trying to figure out how the armorials got to China so we could find an invoice or something indicative of its orgin. I don't believe Annapolis was a major port city for the China trade. I completely agree that it was made for Gov. Eden, though. It was a great source you've found for it! I checked his family and his brother was a captain and merchant, but his trade was in the West Indies and in Tobacco.

Sorry for the late response, I got a bit absorbed in his story and it got too late for me to respond. He was very close to prominent American patriots. Just to add to his story, in May 1773, he accompanied George Washington and his step-son, to a horse race in Philadelphia, which GW wrote about personally in his diary. He also attended The Jockey Club meetings in Philadelphia with prominent figures such as Gov. Penn, GW, John Cadwalader, and Lord Stirling. Many of these figures have had their own services. 

I thought his downfall was especially interesting - and well documented. It turns out the British Secretary of State sent a letter to Eden at the end of 1775 with this quote:

"Your Letter [of 27 Aug. to Lord Dartmouth] contains a great deal of very useful Information, and your confidential Communication of the Characters of Individuals; more especially of such as come over into England, is of great Advantage; and you may rest assured, that every possible precaution will be used, that no part of your Letter shall transpire"

Turns out every part of the letter did transpire when it was intercepted by patriots. 🤣 Also, turns the company he worked with to furnish his house, Perkins, Buchanan, & Brown (London Scotsmen merchant firm), also worked with Thomas Jefferson, who has his own armorials, to furnish books. I tried finding something on the China trade for them, but sources seem to be scarce? Might be difficult to continue on this route - I'll just update with the Howard Vol. II when it arrives. 

TLDR: lots of American history and little about Asian art!

@shinigami I can email you some prices I inquired about and my general thoughts if you'd like! It ranges, and as Jeremy pointed out, some are sub-$1000, but as Polly has a lot of rarities, those carry a higher premium. I will say that her prices did not seem unreasonable to me for their rarity/quality, especially compared to some others I've spoken to. 

@shinigami 

Polly supplied my 18th century basin & guglet for my antique washstand.  It started as a search request that took several years to accomplish.  One of her employees actually located the piece at a regional English auction while on vacation. My experience with Polly is that she will work extensively with a client to meet their collecting needs.

I have recently become involved with the American Decorative Arts collection of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts located at Bayou Bend.  Polly was the source for a truly spectacular Chinese export dinner service that was gifted to the museum by the docent organization.

This dinner service consists of 166 pieces of porcelain and is the most complete service that I have ever seen in person.  Here is an except from the museum website “This large dinner service that was probably a special order by Thomas Willing, one of Philadelphia’s wealthiest men at the time of American Revolution and later an active participant in the China trade. He served in a number of civic offices, including mayor of Philadelphia and as part of Pennsylvania’s delegation to the Continental Congress. He was later named the first president of the Bank of the United States, working closely with Alexander Hamilton as the Treasury Secretary. Decorated with urns and swags, Willing’s dinner service kept pace with the decorative fashions of the federal period.”

@shinigami 

Further information on the Willing service. “Variable dimensions for one soup tureen, two vegetable tureens with liners, eight platters, five dishes, two stands for baskets, one compote, one sauce tureen with fixed stand, one sauce ladle, one sugar bowl, one cream jug, four saucer dishes, twelve soup plates, twenty-eight dinner plates, thirty side or dessert plates, nineteen pudding dishes, three sweetmeat dishes, twenty-four saucers, eleven teabowls, and eleven teacups.”

@bartholin 

John,

I always love the crossover of histories, and it is the main reason I love export porcelain.

I have a very strong interest in early Maryland history, having grown up here, from early furniture which is scarce to later stone-wares and such.  Earlier this year I found what has now been classified as the oldest known piece of Maryland furniture, and it has since ended up in a private Virginia collection, and the catalogue at the Museum of Southern Arts and Design (or will soon), and I am obsessively on the hunt for more.  This plate certainly checks all the boxes for me.

I did reach out to the writer of the the paper I posted and she thinks there is a very strong probability it is from Sir Robert Eden's home in Annapolis, and also in contact with two people at the Maryland Historical Society who also hope it is his. 

I have found two other Eden's who could possibly have had this set however I think both used different armorials, as they were granted others at the time this plate would have been made.

Fingers crossed, it is listed in CAP... or not, I don't know which would be better.  😆 

One interesting thing to note about Sir Robert Eden, is he was one of the only Loyalists invited to attend Washington's release from command at Annapolis, and literally built the state house where it occurred.  Neat.

Jeremy

@william 

That dinner service is stunning, and massive.  My friends Fitzhugh service is half that size, it is hard to picture that on a table. 

Do I remember correctly that you posted a photo of the washstand a number of months back, and it was blue and white, or is my brain playing tricks on me.

Jeremy

@william,

Hi Bill, that's an incredible service. I love that she's leading the charge on American market Chinese export porcelain. I did not know she is so willing to assist in that regard, so I will keep that in mind. Thank you so much for sharing that experience.

@jbeer2121, 

I just sent you an email. It looks like you've done quite a bit of homework on your new plate - I hope you find out more. I think it being unrecorded would be very interesting! I'll keep you updated on it. I hope we can find someone with CAP I to check in the meantime. This is the kind of find that'd make me go crazy with happiness.