Antique Chinese Shipwreck Plate from the Nanking Cargo, 1750 AD

A large section of a petrified conifer tree trunk, (Araucarioxylon arizonicum) from Northern Arizona, dating to the Triassic period, circa 225 million years ago. Over hundreds of m...

A remarkably fine and perfectly preserved example of the earliest human technology, knapped from a nodule of blackbrown flint. Dull when freshly knapped, flint can acquire an intens...

A Levallois Flint Core, from Fransu, Somme, Northern France Middle Palaeolithic, Mousterian, circa 100,000–40,000 years ago A wonderfully tactile artefact, offering a glimpse into t...

A beautiful section of the lunar meteorite Gadamis 003, discovered in the oasis Berber town of Ghadames, Libya, and revealing a magnificent greyish-white spotted interior, evoking th...

Set of six blue and white Qing dynasty porcelain plates from the Nanking Cargo shipwreck. A large cache of porcelain and other merchandise was discovered on the wreck of a Dutch East India Company ship, the Geldermalsen, which sank in the South China Seas in 1752 and was discovered in 1985. The ship had been bound for Amsterdam from Canton when it crashed into a reef and sank along with its cargo of tea, raw silk, porcelain and gold ingots. Some 235 years after it set out on its journey, the cargo was recovered by Captain Michael Hatcher and sold at Christie's in Amsterdam in 1986. These delicate porcelain plates are decorated in the charming "Boatman and six-flower border" pattern, which shows a fisherman punting his boat within a broad river landscape, with a two-story pavilion beside a pine tree, a Chinese parasol...

Blue and white teapot and cover from Nanking Cargo shipwreck, mid-18th century, painted with a willow tree on a fenced riverbank. The pattern is ...

Antique 18th century Chinese plate.

Nice « Blanc Bleu » porcelain plate dating from XIX th century. Blue and white porcelain soup plate. White and blue plate with a couple of peacocks flying through plants and flowers. This porcelain is characteristic of the blue family. The arrival of porcelain in Europe was linked to the development of shipping and international trade. Porcelain was very popular in Europe because of its lightness and its durability. The import from China is linked to the lack of mastery of this technique by the Europeans. The French, Dutch and British East India...