Chinese Shipwreck Ca Mau Cargo c1725 possibilities?

Hello Experts,

I have acquired two plates of Chinese blue and white porcelain styles. Both plates depict the same scene, however it is quite evident that these plates are hand painted as there are obvious differences in the shades of the cobalt and other design nuances. Unfortunately there are no markings as to who made it or of their age.

Doing a google picture search reveals other plates of the same style of Chinese Shipwreck Ca Mau Cargo c1725. Could these be fake or maybe made by the same factory? Note that there are mo marks on the shipwreck plates.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

They do not appear to be 300 years old

 

You'd be amazed at how good a 300 year old piece that sat inside a shipwreck for most of that time can look, Terry.

However, they don't have auction stickers for the sale of the Ca Mau Cargo, so you can't say that's where they came from. Unless the seller said they were Ca Mau, I wouldn't call them "fake." Whether they are 300 years old is up for debate, since so many designs on Chinese porcelain have been used over and over for a long time.

 

One thing that strikes me as off for that period is the wide border design. I own a piece of 1750 Chinese porcelain from the Nanking Cargo (recovered in 1986.) It has, as do the vast majority of the pieces from the Ca Mau Cargo, a narrow border design. Doesn't necessarily disqualify your plates for being of similar age, just seems odd. In fact, the Dutch in particular were already copying Chinese wares and adding their own "take" on what would appeal to customers. The border on yours by itself would look right at home on a Dutch piece. IMHO

 

If they were made in the same factory, that would be in Jingdezhen, the porcelain capital of China.
The porcelain from the Ca Mau cargo was made in the usual places of the period, Jingdezhen, Dehua (Blanc de Chine), and Guangzhou (Canton porcelain). Canton porcelain was also manufactured in Jingdezhen, but decorated in Guangzhou/Canton.

That is unfamiliar to me as well. I also own a small bowl from the Nanking cargo, and other blue and white Chinese porcelain of the period that did manage to get to the Netherlands.
It looks like the plates were painted by two different people, using the same theme, and one is paler than the other, something you also see on Ca Mau plates. The smudgy white glaze on the backs is also seen on Ca Mau plates. They must have been in a hurry to finish them in time for the shipping season.

Yes it would. But Dutch Chinese inspired ceramics are not porcelain. The little porcelain the Dutch manufactured in the 18th century was made in an entirely European style.

The Ca Mau cargo is from a Chinese junk that sunk in Vietnamese waters on its way to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies (Jakarta, Indonesia). In Batavia the cargo would have been loaded on a Dutch ship, and shipped to the Netherlands for distribution to the Dutch and general European market.
The Dutch commissioned a lot of porcelain in China. For example, the Ca Mau cargo contained many 'Scheveningen' pieces, with views of the Dutch fishing village of Scheveningen. Painted in the Chinese manner, the Scheveningen lighthouse became a pagoda.

Your plates don't look commissioned, which doesn't mean they weren't intended for the Dutch market. Without provenance we simply don't know.
I am in the Netherlands, and will search some more for porcelain with that 'Dutch' border.

 

Thank you both for your amazing knowledge!

I read that there were pieces from the shipwreck that were sold on the black market, but I hope that this is not the case for what I posses.

As I look closer at the plates, I see imperfections in the glaze, like tiny bubbles; pin prick in size. Also, the center of the plates have a hump in the middle, ever so slight.

The flower boarder does look like tulips

Lastly, I live in the USA and there were many European immigrants that settled in the area where I live, mostly German, Polish, Swedes, etc.