This wheel-thrown porcelain dish has an underglaze cobalt blue decoration. The blue and white motif of flower and rock in a garden setting is popular in Chinese export ceramics to the West. The small size and depth of the dish suggests that it could have been meant for use as a soup dish or side dish.The piece was retrieved from the Gotheborg wreck. The Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg sank off the Swedish southeast coast in 1745, bringing down with her a cargo of blue and white porcelain, tea leaves and silk. Though the porcelain was not considered the prized cargo (tea was the more important trade commodity then), it would have nonetheless fetched large sums of money when resold in western markets. It was common for supercargoes such as this to make their fortune from selling smuggled porcelain cargo on their ships.This particular dish was salvaged from the first underwater excavation in 1905-1907 led by James Keiller. Subsequent excavations from 1986-1993 have yielded tons of shards with only a small number of perfect pieces like this dish.
