A pair of blue an white spoons, 'Desaru', 1835-50.

The 'Desaru' ship was a Chinese vessel which sank in the 1830s with a cargo of Chinese ceramics. The name relates to the resort village of Desaru near the wreck site, in the southeast of Peninsular Malaysia. The original name of the ship is unknown.

The blue and white porcelain found on the ship is attractive and of very high quality, but the quantity does not match that found on other shipwrecks like the Diana (1817) or the Tek Sing (1822). The many large and crudely-potted storage jars found onboard suggest that more practical objects were in higher demand than decorative objects or wares for fine dining - although the discovery of over 50,000 soup spoons unmatched with bowls also demonstrates the scale of contemporary trade and the danger of extrapolating too much from a single cargo.