Bidspirit auction | Export Nanking Cargo Blue &

Export Nanking Cargo Blue & White Laughing Boys - Pair of Chinese export Nanking cargo blue and white porcelain figures of laughing boys, Qianlong ca. 1750. Each modeled seated with their hairs tied in two knots. One missing a leg. Wearing tunics and naked from the waist down. Provenance: Christie's, Amsterdam, ”The Nanking Cargo - Chinese Export Porcelain and Gold, ” April 28, 1986, Lot 5755, 5760A; The Distinguished Collection of Leo & Doris Hodroff. Lot Essay: From the wreck of the Geldermalsen, a Dutch East India Company merchant ship traveling from China to the Netherlands when it hit a coral reef and sank in the South China Sea, 1752. British explorer and marine salvage expert Michael Hatcher recovered porcelain and gold ingots from the shipwreck in 1985. (Each) Height: 4 3/4 in x width: 2 3/4 in x depth: 2 1/4 in. Condition: To one of the figures, there is a complete loss to the left leg; there is a horizontal crack radiating from the loss, extending approximately 1 1/4 inches along the verso of the figure. To the same figure, there is a small loss to the left fingers. There is a possible minute chip along the tip of the element in the figure's right hand. To the other figure, there are losses to each of the hands, including a loss to the element once held in the figure's right hand and a small loss along the extreme left side of the left fingers. To each, there are scattered fleabite to small-sized chips, particularly along the figures' mouths and wrists, to the raised elements along the figures' heads, and along the extreme edges of the feet. There are some rounded and linear firing flaws.