Page 18 - Kraak Porcelain, Jorge Welsh

Fig. for displaying Chinese blue and white porcelains in the Dutch town of Friesland. Finally,
Map of kraak kiln sites another origin of the word has been recently suggested. This is the Irish word curach which
Old City Zone, Jingdezhen referred to a hide-covered ship in many parts of Britain, Ireland and Brittany.
Jiangxi province
The earliest known written reference to kraak porcelain dates from . It is a memo-
1 Guanyinge randum sent on April by the Director of the in Amsterdam to the Hoge Regering
2 Lianhualing (the Dutch government in Batavia) specifying which porcelain assortments were most
3 Dongfeng ci chang in demand in the Netherlands. In this document the terms craek and caraek, referring to
4 Dian ci chang kraak porcelain bowls and plates, are mentioned only once, nevertheless they appear to
5 Liujiaxianong have constituted a major part of this order. This memorandum is of particular importance
6 Shibaqiao because it proves that kraak porcelain was being produced and ordered at the same time
7 Renmin ci chang as Transitional porcelain. The following year, on May , a second reference to kraak
8 Cidubaihuo porcelain appears in an order sent by the Director in Batavia to the Dutch merchants in
9 Guihuanong Fort Zeelandia, built on Tayouan, a peninsula on the coast of Formosa in . In this order,
10 Xinhua ci chang however, the term craecqporceleijn (kraak porcelain) is used. A later reference appears not
in records, but in the inventory of the porcelains of Amalia van Solms, countess
of Solms-Braunfels ( – ), wife of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange ( – ), in
which the terms kraeckwerck and craeckcommen are mentioned several times.

Recent archeological discoveries in China have brought to light the need for a new eval-
uation of this distinctive porcelain. These discoveries were made at ten provincial (private-
ly-owned) kiln sites where kraak porcelain was fired in the late Ming dynasty. They are

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Fig.