18th Century ChineseTea set 6/6 - Camau Shipwreck (06/14/2011)

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18th Century ChineseTea set 6/6 - Camau Shipwreck

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18th Century ChineseTea set 6/6 - Camau Shipwreck

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Sold Date: 06/14/2011
Channel: Online Auction
Source: eBay
Category: Ethnic, Folk & Native American Art

This is authentic original tea set of 18th century Chinese export porcelain Camau shipwreck.
We bought this lot at Sothebys Auction in Amsterdam in January 2007.
Original auction sticker is on each piece with the serial#.
The similar set of were sold at auction for over 7,000 USD.
I do have auction catalog and the Camau shipwreck book
auction result can be viewed at Sothebys website.
I bought this for very high price.
This design tea set is the highest price of all tea set in the auction.
Size:
Tea Cup: 2.75" W x 1.25"H
Plate: 4.24" W x .50" H
Condition:
The tea set of 6 tea cups and 6 plates are in very good condition.
No crack or chip.
Shipping:
30 USD shipping cost for USA and 50 USD for international Flat rate.
Due to our moving oversea we have to sell all of our collection
Please also view our other items listing on Ebay today.
History:

On 29th-31st January 2007, in the auction rooms of Sotheby's, Amsterdam, the sale of 76,000 pieces of one of the largest and most evocative shipwrecks was sold. This Blue and White Chinese Porcelain went under the hammer for ¤3,000,000, and we were there to buy some of this amazing cargo, which had been lost for the last 280 years on the bed of the South China Sea in an area known as Ca Mau.

Europe in the early 1800's had become very passionate about Chinese porcelain along with their insatiable appetite for tea, coffee and chocolate. England and the Netherlands were the main importers of tea and with it came hundreds of thousands of tea wares from which to drink it. The porcelain would have acted as the ballast, with the tea and the silk, another commodity in high demand, on top.

China was largely closed to foreign trade but due to the demand from Europe for tea, silk and its fine white porcelain, a port at Canton was opened. The port served the English, Dutch, Scandinavian, French and Armenian traders, and a number of Chinese junks which would ferry goods, including porcelain to ports in the South China Sea. These cargoes would be sold and shipped on the long journey round Africa back to Europe.

This Junk, as the experts have deduced, was on its way from Canton (now Guangzhou) to Batavia (now Jakarta). A ferocious fire caused the junk to sink. The cargo lay on the sea bed for the next 280 years. The porcelain had been made in the kilns of Jingdezhen, the city where all the Chinese Imperial porcelain was produced and therefore associated with the finest of Chinese porcelain, the pieces are in remarkably good condition. It was the local Vietnamese fishermen who first started illegal dredging of the cargo but after reports in a local newspaper the Vietnamese Government mounted a full-scale operation to recover all the cargo, and after two years of bad weather conditions, strong currents and technical problems, the cargo was finally recovered and sold at the world famous auctioneers Sotheby's and amazingly finished up in your collection.

The quality of the 300 year old porcelain is quite remarkable considering it has been on the seabed, only showing small signs of sea salvage.