QIANLONG PERIOD (1736-1795), CIRCA 1765

The view depicted is of the Stadts-Herbergh (or Nieuwe Stadsherberg), the tavern built in 1662 and demolished in 1872. The building fronted the River Ij in Amsterdam and was a popular haunt for generations of Dutch V.O.C. (East India Company) sailors, who most probably made it their first and last port of call between voyages. It has been suggested that this subject of decoration must have been commissioned for the centennial of the tavern (see D. Howard and J. Ayers, China for the West, London and New York, 1974, I, p. 193, no. 190). No exact print source for this decoration has yet been discovered, but C. Le Corbeiller illustrates one (published 1664) in China Trade Porcelain: Patterns of Exchange, New York, 1974, p. 108 of a very similar view.