COHEN & COHEN
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Qianlong, c 1736
Purchased by a Museum.
‘The Doctor’s Visit to the Emperor’ was probably the second drawing done by Cornelis Pronk for the VOC in 1735 and, like all his others, portrayed a very Western view of life in China. The design arrived in Canton in 1737 and presented the supercargoes responsible for placing the porcelain order with a problem familiar from the first design, ‘La Dame au Parasol’. The designs were highly detailed and therefore very expensive to produce, especially in such large pieces as this urn and the supercargoes dared only to place a small order. A second, slightly larger order was placed the following year, but in 1739 another less detailed version of the design, omitting the standing figure, as sent to Canton in the hope of reducing the price of production. The supercargoes took this second design from dealer to dealer but were unable to obtain a satisfactory reduction in the price and reported that they would not be placing an order. The records of the VOC show, however, that a large order of 60 dinner services of 371 pieces, thirty more of 94 pieces and 830 pieces of tea wares was placed after all. Strangely, pieces of the second design are now much less common than pieces of the first despite having been ordered in far larger numbers.
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