A Chinese Export Blue and White 'Rotterdam Riot' Plate, Qing Dynasty, Kangxi Period, After 1690 | 清康熙 1690年以後 青花「鹿特丹之亂」圖盤 《大明成化年製》仿款

The Royal Collections of Saxony, Japanese Palace, Dresden

Ralph M. Chait Galleries, New York

S. Marchant & Son, London, June 2006;

Collection of Henry H. Arnhold;

Sotheby's New York, 24 October 2019, lot 492;

Acquired from the above by the present owner.

M. Cassidy-Geiger, The Arnhold Collection of Meissen Porcelain 1710-50, New York, 2008, no. 367, p. 704, illus. 

'Rotterdam Riot' plates were noted in François and Nicole Hervouët and Yves Bruneau, La Porcelaine des Compagnies des Indes à Décor Occidental, Paris, 1986, cat. no. 9.35, as the earliest example of Chinese export porcelain documented with European historical and political subjects. The riots occurred in Rotterdam between September and October 1690 after a young guard, Cornelius Kosterman, accidentally killed a man while smuggling wine into the city hall to celebrate with his colleagues. Kosterman was sentenced to death by then Chief Baliff Jacob van Zuylen van Nyevelt. The public was enraged by the injustice and riots ensued. The source of the subject matter comes from a popular medal stuck by Dutch medalist Johannes Smeltzig (1656-93) after an engraving by G. van Loon. An identical example was sold in these rooms, February 1st, 2019, lot 830. 

Seventeen Chinese porcelain dishes under the number 414 were included in the 1721 Inventarium über das Palais zu Alt-Dresden, which lists the contents of the Holländische Palais, later to become the Japanese Palace: "414. 17 tiefe Teller, darein ein Aufruhr gemahlet ist, 1¼ Z. tief u. 8½ Z. in diam.", [414. 17 deep plates depicting an uprising, 1¼ in. deep and 8½ in. in diam.]. By the 1779 inventory of the Japanese Palace, all the dishes were still included in the collection. Today five examples are retained in the Porzellansammlung, Dresden, for example inv. no. PO 1471.