Chinese porcelain with scenes of Sydney
The Sydney punchbowls, made in China during the Jiaqing Emperor's reign (1796–1820) over the mid-Qing dynasty, are the only two known examples of Chinese export porcelain hand painted with Sydney scenes and dating from the Macquarie era. The bowls were procured in Canton about three decades after the First Fleet's arrival at Port Jackson where the British settlement at Sydney Cove was established in 1788. They also represent the trading between Australia and China via India at the time. Even though decorated punchbowls were prestigious items used for drinking punch at social gatherings during the 18th and 19th centuries, it is not known who originally commissioned these bowls or what special occasion they were made for.
The punchbowls are a 'harlequin pair', similar but not exactly matching. The bowls have been donated independently, one to the State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW) in 1926 and the other to the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) in 2006. The Library bowl is the more widely known of the pair. Its earliest provenance places it in England in the late 1840s, where it is said to originally have been commissioned for William Bligh; another source suggests Henry Colden Antill. It passed through several owners in Britain before it was presented to the State Library. The Museum bowl's first provenance is from England in 1932 and it has been suggested that it was made to the order of Arthur Phillip. Its whereabouts were unknown until it appeared in the Newark Museum, United States, in 1988, on loan from Peter Frelinghuysen Jr. Through donations, the Maritime Museum later acquired the punchbowl from Frelinghuysen.
The punchbowls are of polychrome famille rose with gilding, adorned with panoramic views from opposite vantage points of early 19th century Sydney, combined with traditional Chinese porcelain decorations and each features a rare, lively tondo grouping of Aboriginal figures. The panoramas are detailed and show a number of landmarks in and around Sidney Cove at the time. The motifs have probably been taken from artwork by several artists working in Australia during the 18th and early 19th century.
History.
Background.
Hand painted Chinese porcelain dinner wares became the height of fashion in Europe and North America during the 18th century as a way showing off wealth and status in society. The porcelain was ordered through different East India Companies and later independent American traders; all Western trading companies with ships sailing to China. The porcelain was decorated with a combination of Chinese patterns and Western motifs selected by its commissioner. The Chinese manufacturers sent porcelain samples of decorations to their prospective clients in Europe and the United States and their clients provided the porcelain painters in China with paintings, drawings or sketches for their orders. These dinner wares are categorized into "familles" (French for "families") mainly by the colours they are painted in such as famille verte, noire, jaune and rose.
These sets of tableware included all the dishes necessary to set a grand table for a gala dinner. A 1766 order form from the Swedish East India Company stated that "small services" contained 224 pieces and a "larger service" 281 pieces. Punchbowls however, were not included in these sets, they were ordered separately as showcase pieces. The bowls were used to serve hot or cold drinks at special occasions in clubs, at social gatherings and in wealthy homes, or before or after grand dinners.
After the British settlement at Sydney Cove was established in 1788, a significant part of the Chinese porcelain shipped to Australia came via British traders living in India. Operating under licences issued by the British East India Company, who held a commercial monopoly in the Far East, this trade was known as the 'Country Trade', the Indian ships were called 'Country Ships' and their captains 'Country Captains'. Examination of the cargo of ships wrecked during the early colonisation of Australia show that the Country Trade played an important role in getting supplies, including Chinese porcelain traded via India often in Indian-built vessels, to the early Australian colonies.
The two Sydney punchbowls are the only known examples of Chinese export porcelain hand painted with Sydney scenes and dating from the Macquarie era, lasting 1810–1821. The bowls were procured in China sometime between 1796 and 1820; about three decades after the First Fleet's arrival at Port Jackson in Sydney Cove. By 1850 Chinese-made porcelain imports had been replaced with British earthenwares transfer-printed with decoration of Chinese derivation.
Function.
Whilst the drinking of punch from punchbowls was an actual social practice of the times, the Sydney Cove punchbowls were specially commissioned and expensive items which had other purposes. Such punchbowls were prestigious items owned by individuals of high rank in society, such as John Hosking Sydney's first elected Mayor, and New York's fourth Governor Daniel Tomkins, who also acquired a punchbowl. The two punchbowls, previously owned by Hosking, are the first Chinese objects acquired by the Australiana Fund. The bowls could also have been commissioned as commemorative gifts, like the 1812 Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania Union Lodge punchbowl gift. and the New York City punchbowl presented to the City of New York on 4July 1812. It has also been suggested that, given the Aboriginal marriage motif, the Sydney punchbowls may have been a marriage gift. Punchbowls were also regarded as exotic souvenirs at the time.
It is also possible the Sydney punchbowls may have had other purposes – to promote the fledgling settlement and to encourage new settlers. In 1820, artist John William Lewin's patron, merchant Alexander Riley, looking for ways to promote the New South Wales colony, stated: "It has long been a subject of our consideration in this Country that a Panorama exhibited in London of the Town of Sydney and surrounding scenery would create much public interest and ultimately be of service to the Colony". This purpose is clearly set forth even in the title of William Charles Wentworth's tome on New South Wales, which contained the engraving of Lewin's Sydney Cove painting. The full title ends "... With a Particular Enumeration of the Advantages Which These Colonies Offer for Emigration, and Their Superiority in Many Respects Over Those Possessed by the United States of America". The punchbowls were also an opportunity to present the art of topographical panoramas in the form of a high status object and to portray the new colony in a more glamorous way than that of simply a remote convict colony as perceived at the time.
Commissioning.
The gilded monogram initials on the Library punchbowl are perhaps the only current clue as to the original commissioner of the punchbowls. The initials are difficult to decipher because of partial loss of the gilt Copperplate script. Possibilities include HCA or HA, TCA or FCA over B. Several candidates have been suggested including Henry, 3rd Earl of Bathurst, and Sir Thomas Brisbane, New South Wales Governor in 1821–1825 after Lachlan Macquarie, but the most likely is Henry Colden Antill (1779–1852). Antill was appointed aide-de-camp to the fifth New South Wales Governor, Macquarie who was in office 1810–1821, on his arrival in Sydney on 1January 1810. He was promoted to Major of Brigade in 1811 and retired from the British Army in 1821. Antill settled on land first at Moorebank near Liverpool and then in 1825 on his estate near Picton—named Jarvisfield in honour of Macquarie's first wife, Jane Jarvis. He was buried at Jarvisfield on 14August 1851. Antill had subdivided part of the estate in 1844, making possible the founding of the town of Picton. When the State Library acquired its punchbowl in 1926, the Antill family of Picton — Henry's antecedents — had no knowledge of the punchbowl's provenance.
20th-century provenance.
The Library punchbowl.
The State Library's punchbowl was the earlier of the two to become more widely known. It was presented to the Library by Sydney antiques dealer, auctioneer and collector, William Augustus Little, in November 1926, an event reported in the Sydney "Evening News" on 3November 1926. The punchbowl discovery itself was reported in several Australian newspapers earlier in March, including "The Sydney Morning Herald" on 4March 1926, with the title "Bookshop Find : Relic of Early Sydney". These newspaper articles state that Little bought the punchbowl from London antiquarian bookseller, Francis Edwards Ltd of 83 Marylebone High Street and that Little subsequently had it appraised by experts from the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&amp;A) in February 1926. The newspapers report that the V&amp;A wished to keep the bowl. The articles also state that the bowl had "paintings of Sydney in 1810, executed to the order of Major Antill who was Governor Macquarie's aide-de-camp". Among the clientele of Francis Edwards Ltd were some of the noted Australiana collectors of the day, including William Dixon, James Edge-Partington, David Scott Mitchell and the Mitchell Library itself.
Before Little's purchase, the punchbowl had been the property of Sir Timothy Augustine Coghlan, New South Wales Agent-General in London, who bought the bowl for £40 in 1923 from one Miss Hall for his own collection. The bowl was subsequently in the possession of Francis Edwards Ltd before Coghlan's unexpected death in London on 30April 1926. Coghlan had personally collected the bowl from a Miss Hall at 'Highfield', 63 Seabrook Rd, Hythe (Kent), England, a few months after she had decided to offer the bowl to the New South Wales Government for £50. Earlier, a visit to Miss Hall by a Sydney schoolteacher, Jessie Stead, on 6August 1923, resulted in the proposal that the bowl ought to be the property of the City of Sydney. Jessie Stead later indicated that she was informed by Miss Hall that her father had acquired the bowl in the late 1840s – the earliest dating for the punchbowls' provenance – and that Miss Hall believed the bowl was commissioned for William Bligh, New South Wales's fourth Governor (in office 1806–1808). In 2002, the State Library of New South Wales digitised the punchbowl images with the support of the Nelson Meers Foundation, a philanthropic foundation supporting Australian arts, and the bowl became one of the 100 extraordinary library objects to be exhibited as part of Mitchell Library's centenary celebrations in 2010.
The Museum punchbowl.
The second Sydney punchbowl had a much more circuitous journey to the present. The bowl first appeared in May 1932, when Sir Robert Witt, chairman of the British National Art Collections Fund, wrote to James MacDonald, Director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, inquiring if a Sydney museum would be interested in acquiring the second punchbowl. The Gallery Director referred the offer to William Herbert Ifould, Principal Librarian of the Public Library of New South Wales, in August 1932. Ifould wrote directly to Sir Robert Witt indicating that the bowl was not required by the Library as a very similar one was already held. Ifould received a reply dated 31October 1932, stating that during the intervening months the owner of the bowl in England – whose name was undisclosed – had since sold the bowl to another undisclosed buyer. The bowl's subsequent whereabouts was unknown until 1988. In the original offer by Sir Robert – who had also co-founded the Courtauld Institute of Art in London – a suggestion was made that this bowl had been made to the order of Arthur Phillip, the first Governor of New South Wales (in office 1788–1795) who established the settlement at Sydney Cove. However, no evidence to support this view was given in Witt's letter.
1988 was the bicentenary of non-indigenous settlement in Australia and, as such, there was renewed interest in the 'lost' second Sydney punchbowl. The bowl eventually turned up in a catalogue for a Chinese export porcelain exhibition at Newark Museum, New Jersey, United States, titled "Chinese Export Porcelain: A Loan Exhibition from New Jersey Collections". The bowl had been lent by Peter Frelinghuysen Jr., a former United States Congressman (in office 1953–1975). The discovery was made by Terry Ingram, a Sydney journalist specialising in antiques and art, who wrote about it in his Saleroom column, titled "Newark Museum packs Aussie punch", in "The Australian Financial Review" on 25August 1988. It transpired that in the early 1930s, the bowl was acquired by Frelinghuysen's parents in a private negotiation with the owner at the time the National Art Collections Fund was attempting to raise interest from Sydney's cultural institutions. This discovery drew the attention of Paul Hundley, senior curator of the