Antique Oriental Ceramics : A pair blue & white Bottle Vases - 1690 - Vung Tau Cargo Shipwreck

A wonderful hand painted pair (2X) of blue and white Bottle miniature Vases, circa 1690 recovered from the Chinese Vung Tau Cargo Shipwreck
stylised decorated

Good Antique Condition - light signs of their underwater experience mentioned for accuracy

No Christies labels - guaranteed to have been part of the Vung Tau Cargo

2 inches (5cm) height approx

Circa: 1690

From a small private Collection of Vung Tau Cargo and Nanking Cargo - Fresh to the market

The Vung Tau was discovered in 1989 by a Vietnamese fisherman trawling the sea-bed for shellfish.
He was a few miles away from Con Dao Island, which lies roughly 100 nautical miles away south of Vung Tau,
when his nets snagged on an obstruction. Con Dao Island was one of the last fresh-water refuelling stops for ships
making their way to the north-western islands of Indonesia. Of the thousands of ships that would have stopped here,
few of the many that would have been lost through monsoons, piracy or fire, have ever been discovered.
The ship lay at 120 feet but visibility was poor and diving was hampered by the seasonal monsoons so that it took
2 years to salvage all of 28000 pieces. The ship was an Asian trading vessel, 110 feet long and 33 feet wide and
on examination of the timbers, showed that the vessel had been burned to the water line. There was little to date
the wreck apart from a few coins of the reign of the Chinese Emperor Kangxi (1662-1722) and a small Chinese
ink stick corresponding to AD 1690. The Vung Tau was probably destined for the major trading centre in Java,
the city of Batavia (now Jakarta) which was settled by the Dutch in 1619. The porcelain in this cargo was made
within a decade of 1683, which is the year historians regard as the official re-opening of China’s major porcelain
kilns, at Jingdezhen after civil war disrupted the industry. Much of the cargo would have likely been bought up by
Dutch VOC supercargoes, preparing mixed consignments for the homeward run to Amsterdam or elsewhere
along the Netherlandish seaboard.

Antique Porcelain & Pottery
Antique Vases