Great Piece at ~Half of Typical Retail for Shipwreck Discovery Plates/Bowls

This bowl is shown alone in the first photo, the unpainted bottom in the second photo and alongside others in the sale in the third photo.

The 150± foot-long Chinese junk was not only carrying a vast number of items destined for Indonesia sunk in 1822 in about 100 feet of water. It had a very large crew, estimated at 200. It was unusual for the Asian trade vessels of the early 1800s that have been discovered....because its name was known. Most discovered shipwrecks from that period and geographic location that have been discovered had names lost to history.

The Tek Sing was possibly sailing with two other ships since those two quickly discovered the debris from the sinking. They were able to rescue close to 200 people from the shipwreck, but it had nearly ten times that number on board! It is speculation that the approximately 1,900 passengers (not crew) were immigrants being ferried to a new home in the Dutch East Indies, now known as Indonesia.

Because of the great loss of life on the Tek Sing, after its discovery it was often called the "Asian Titanic."

In 1999 the wreck was discovered--in a spot north of Java, east of Sumatra and south of Singapore. The British crew that located the ship and had salvage rights estimated that there were 350,000 items on the vessel. It was not noted how many they were able to retrieve. Also, the styles and designs made it clear that the Chinese porelain was for Asian markets and NOT Europe.

This is the only bowl of this size and style I have. it is 3 inches in diameter and about an 1 1/2 inches deep. At first it apears unglazed but there is a thin finish over the entire surface.

Historians have described bowls of this size as rice bowls or tea bowls. It would have been the size for one person's serving of a drink or rice or other dishes, especially side dishes.

This and a large portion of other items--perhaps a majority--have chips or other minor damage on them. We were lucky to find several Tek Sing plates/bowls with no visible damage, which would have occurred when they spilled out of barrels in the ship's hold. Such examples formed the strewn field divers found for hundreds of yards from the ship and a high percentage of those found on the sea bed were chipped or shattered. The last photo shows a small portion of the strewn field from the Tek Sing.