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A Chinese Export punch bowl, Qing dynasty, Qianlong (1736-95).

Estimate
20 000 - 30 000 SEK
1 770 - 2 650 EUR
1 840 - 2 760 USD
Hammer price
16 000 SEK
Purchasing info
For condition report contact specialist
Cecilia Nordström
Stockholm
Cecilia Nordström
Head Specialist Asian Ceramics and Works of Art, European Ceramics and Glass
+46 (0)739 40 08 02
A Chinese Export punch bowl, Qing dynasty, Qianlong (1736-95).

Decorated with iron red and gilt with ten Caroliner copper coins, so called 'emergency coins/not geld' with different inscriptions such as 'Jupiter', 'Mars' and 'Hopp' (hope). The interior with a lamberquin border patterin and flower. Height 12.2 cm. Diameter 28.5 cm.

Chip to the rim. Wear.

Provenance

It had long been a popular fashion to mount commemorative medals and coins on silver tankards and other drinking vessels. So the step to use coins and bank notes as decoration on porcelain was not far when the possibilities to have items custom made in China.
During the late 1730’s the interest in the diseased Swedish King Carolus XII politics and wars escalated. The coin used to decorate this bowl are of the kind minted to restore the situation after the s.c. ‘Not geld’ (emergency coins).
In Sweden, during the years 1715-1719, to finance the Great Northern War, Carolus XII and the Government decided to collect all silver coins and replace them with ones made in copper. 40 million copper coins were issued with different inscriptions such as ’Jupiter’, ’Vett och vapen’ (wit and weapons) and the last one ’Hopp’ (hope). The emergency coins issued were credit coins and the value of the coin corresponded with the amount stated on it, instead of the earlier system in which it corresponded to the value of the metal in the coin. The government promised to exchange them into the correct value in the future, but only a small value of this was ever paid, which lead to an uproar.

Exhibitions

Compare a similar bowl in the Collections of Östergötlands museums samlingar, ÖM.LM.001007.

Compare a similar bowl in the Collections of Östergötlands museums samlingar, ÖM.LM.001007.

Compare a similar bowl sold at Bukowskis Spring Sale 601, lot no 369.

Literature

Jan Wirgin, Från Kina till Europa, p. 192.

Bo Gyllensvärd, Porslinet från Kina, p. 96, p. 135.

There are some punch bowls with not-geld or other Carolus XII memorabilia previously known and documented in the literature, see for example
Sven T Kjellberg, in Svenska Ostindiska Kompanierna page 246.
Also M Lagerquist “Karl XII i Kina, Fataburen page 155-166.

J. Nordbergs "Konung Carl XII:s historia". Compare silver tankards decorated with Carolus XII’s s.k. Not Geld.