Tek Sing Chinese Shipwreck Cargo Small Lotus Dish
A circular dish salvaged from the Tek Sing, of lotus form decorated with two concentric bands of petals around a central spiral with alternating lingzhi fungus and fruiting peach sprays. Measures 15cm in diameter at the rim and 3cm tall, Nagal Auction labels to base. There are typical small firing flaws and light surface wear but generally in very good condition - please see all photos for confirmation.
The Tek Sing
The Tek Sing (Chinese, "True Star") was a large three-masted Chinese ocean-going junk which sank on February 6, 1822 in an area of the South China Sea known as the Belvidere Shoals. The vessel was 50 meters in length, 10 meters wide and weighed about a thousand tons. Its tallest mast was estimated to be 90 feet in height. The ship was manned by a crew of 200 and had approx. 1600 passengers. The great loss of life associated with the sinking has led to the Tek Sing being referred to in modern times as the "Titanic of the East". Sailing from the port of Amoy (now Xiamen in Fujian, People's Republic of China), the Tek Sing was bound for Batavia, Dutch East Indies (now Jakarta, Indonesia) laden with a large cargo of porcelain goods and 1600 Chinese immigrants. After a month of sailing, the Tek Sing's captain, Io Tauko, decided to attempt a shortcut through the Gaspar Strait between the Bangka-Belitung Islands, and ran aground on a reef. The junk sank in about 30m (100 feet) of water. On May 12, 1999, Michael Hatcher discovered the wreck of the Tek Sing in an area of the South China Sea north of Java, east of Sumatra and south of Singapore. His crew raised about 350,000 pieces of the ship's cargo in what is described as the largest sunken cache of Chinese porcelain ever recovered. The Tek Sing's recovered cargo was auctioned by Nagal auctioneers in Stuttgart in November 2000.