Sydney punchbowls

The bowls were procured in Canton about three decades after the First Fleet's arrival at Port Jackson where the British settlement at Sydney Cove was established in 1788.

Even though decorated punchbowls were prestigious items used for drinking punch at social gatherings during the 18th and 19th centuries, it is not known who originally commissioned these bowls or what special occasion they were made for.

The bowls have been donated independently, one to the State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW) in 1926 and the other to the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) in 2006.

Its earliest provenance places it in England in the late 1840s, where it is said to originally have been commissioned for William Bligh; another source suggests Henry Colden Antill.

The punchbowls are of polychrome famille rose with gilding, adorned with panoramic views from opposite vantage points of early 19th century Sydney, combined with traditional Chinese porcelain decorations and each features a rare, lively tondo grouping of Aboriginal figures.

Hand painted Chinese porcelain dinner wares became the height of fashion in Europe and North America during the 18th century as a way showing off wealth and status in society.

The bowls were used to serve hot or cold drinks at special occasions in clubs, at social gatherings and in wealthy homes, or before or after grand dinners.

In 1820, artist John William Lewin's patron, merchant Alexander Riley, looking for ways to promote the New South Wales colony, stated: "It has long been a subject of our consideration in this Country that a Panorama exhibited in London of the Town of Sydney and surrounding scenery would create much public interest and ultimately be of service to the Colony".

[25] This purpose is clearly set forth even in the title of William Charles Wentworth's tome on New South Wales, which contained the engraving of Lewin's Sydney Cove painting.

The full title ends "... With a Particular Enumeration of the Advantages Which These Colonies Offer for Emigration, and Their Superiority in Many Respects Over Those Possessed by the United States of America".

[35] These newspaper articles state that Little bought the punchbowl from London antiquarian bookseller, Francis Edwards Ltd[36] of 83 Marylebone High Street and that Little subsequently had it appraised by experts from the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in February 1926.

[24][37] Before Little's purchase, the punchbowl had been the property of Sir Timothy Augustine Coghlan, New South Wales Agent-General in London, who bought the bowl for £40 in 1923 from one Miss Hall for his own collection.

The Gallery Director referred the offer to William Herbert Ifould,[42] Principal Librarian of the Public Library of New South Wales, in August 1932.

[44] The discovery was made by Terry Ingram, a Sydney journalist specialising in antiques and art, who wrote about it in his Saleroom column, titled Newark Museum packs Aussie punch, in The Australian Financial Review on 25 August 1988.

[45] It transpired that in the early 1930s, the bowl was acquired by Frelinghuysen's parents in a private negotiation with the owner at the time the National Art Collections Fund was attempting to raise interest from Sydney's cultural institutions.

The unpainted bowls, however, would have first been manufactured in Jingdezhan, a town 800 km (500 mi) by road from Canton, where pottery factories have operated for nearly 2,000 years, and still do today.

They are both Chinese ceramics ware of Cantonese origin, made of clear glaze on hard-paste porcelain and painted with polychrome famille rose[60][61] overglaze enamel and gilding.

[62] Whilst the indigenous Australian groups painted within the inner centre of both bowls are identical, the outer panoramic views of Sydney Cove are not.

This pairing follows a standard convention in late 18th-and early 19th-century topographical art of painting two views of the same scene from opposite vantage points.

[24] The traditional floral motif of such Chinese flowers as chrysanthemums, peonies, cherry and plum blossom has been applied to the internal borders of both bowls in a similar pattern.

[64] This Sydney Cove engraving appeared as a full-page illustration in the second edition of A Statistical, Historical and Political Description of New South Wales and its dependent settlements in Van Diemen's Land etc[65] (London, 1820) by Wentworth, with a later, smaller, version as one of ten Port Jackson harbour views illustrated on Map of Part of New South Wales[66] (London, 1825) by publisher and engraver, Joseph Cross.

Lewin had a close association with Antill[62] and both were part of Governor Macquarie's 50-strong excursion party to inspect land and the new road over the Blue Mountains from 25 April to 19 May 1815.

[73] A second engraved version appeared on page 74 of a similar folio edition Album of original drawings by Captain James Wallis and Joseph Lycett, ca 1817–1818 etc[74] by publisher Rudolph Ackermann in London, 1821.

However, the Dawes Point fortifications — designed by the convict architect Francis Greenway — and its gun emplacements, dominate the foreground of both engravings.

[75] As with the Museum bowl's Sydney Cove image, no directly related, surviving, version is known that would have been used by the ceramic artists to paint the Aboriginal group.

The closest match is a drawing after an apparently now-lost original sketch by Nicolas-Martin Petit,[76] artist on the 1800–1803 French expedition to Australia led by Nicolas Baudin.

[24] Research made around 2009–2012,[77] indicated that during Baudin's expedition, a report was prepared for Emperor Napoleon on the feasibility of capturing the British colony at Sydney Cove.

[83] In the foreground is an octagonal two-storey, yellow, sandstone house ①, built by Governor Macquarie in 1812 for his favourite boatman and former water bailiff, Billy or William Blue.

The foreshore buildings on the extreme right are the warehouse and "Wharf House" residence of merchant, Robert Campbell ⑥ who was to become one of the colony's biggest landholders.

First Government House can be seen at the head of Sydney Cove in the distance ② and around the eastern shore a small rendition of Billy Blue's 1812-house ①.