Beschreibung:

A rare and massive dated Canton Armorial punch bowl by Syngchong, Ching Dynasty, Jiaqing period (1796-1820), decorated to the exterior in overglaze colours with the Cholmondeley of Vale Royal coat of arms and motto 'Cassis Tutissima Virtue', opposed by Thomas Cholmondeley's monogram, and flanked by two painted mottoes 'Success to the County of Cheshire' and 'Prosperity to the Plough and Sail'. The interior is decorated with a Chinese nine tiered pagoda within a landscape featuring high clouds, lines of birds and a house. The whole is bordered with a deep blue enamelled and tooled gilt hatched rim. Inscribed in script to the underside 'Canton Syngchong Fecit 1797', 53cm diameter Exhibited: Previously on loan to the Grosvenor Museum, Chester Notes: The punch bowl offered here belongs to a tiny number of massive punch bowls made in Canton to specific commissions in the tradition of export wares but on a more ambitious scale . Of this tiny group all those documented appear to have been Masonic or Civic commissions, thus setting this Cholmondeley bowl apart in being presented to an individual. For comparison reference must be made to 'The True Friendship Bowl', housed in Freemasons Hall, London. Inscribed 'this bowl made by Syng Chong, China Merchant of Canton' it was presented to The True Lodge of Friendship by Brother Hugh Adams in 1813. When comparing another Masonic piece in the British Museum collection this bowl was described as being of unusually large size (Harrison-Hall and Krahl, Ancient Chinese Trade Ceramics from the British Museum, 1994). Of similar size is 'The City Punch Bowl' which is housed in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is inscribed "Drink deep, you will preserve the City and encourage Canals" and is decorated with the seal of the fledgling United States of America and a view of the city to the interior, faithfully copied from the engraving by Birch in 1803. It was presented to the corporation of the city in 1812. Neither the True Friendship Bowl nor the City Bowl have ever been offered on the open market and given their strong connections to their current homes it is difficult to envisage that they will in the future. The script on the underside of these bowls clearly indicates that they were made by Syngchong. Little appears to be known about him but Major Samuel Shaw, the first American consul to Canton in 1786, refers to him as ''the principal porcelain merchant of Canton'' (The Journals of Major Samuel Shaw, pub. Crosby & Nichols, Boston, 1847, p.198). It is therefore likely that as a merchant he selected the best potters and painters among a highly skilled Canton workforce to execute the commissions he had won and that his script is effectively his trademark. The name Cholmondeley appears frequently in Ormerod's 'History of the County Palatine and City of Chester' published in 1819. Branches of the family include the Marquises of Cholmondeley of Houghton Hall, Norfolk, and Cholmondeley Castle, Cheshire, who are descendants of Sir Robert Walpole, and the Barons of Delamere of Vale Royal Abbey, Thomas Cholmondeley being the 1st Baron, having been raised to the peerage in 1821. Thomas Cholmondeley (1767-1855), second cousin to William Pitt the Younger, continued a long family tradition of participating in political life when he was elected as Member of Parliament for Cheshire in 1796, having also served as High Sheriff for the county in 1792. Although it is uncertain who commissioned this magnificent piece of porcelain to commemorate his election to Parliament they certainly wished Thomas Cholmondeley and his family well, for the mottoes 'Prosperity to the County of Cheshire' and 'Success to the Plough and the Sail' as well as the Chinese symbolism of the Pagoda landscape were very pertinent to the landowning family at that time. Sold for