Page 34 - Kraak Porcelain, Jorge Welsh

dish in the Topkapi Saray Museum in Istanbul (inv. no. bumblebee. Compare, for instance, the finely rendered
/ ). The hare gazing at the moon motif also
bumblebees shown on the panelled rims of a group of
occurred on blue and white Wanli imperial wares, as
evidenced on a saucer dish from the collection of Sir large dishes with flat, bracket-lobed rims discussed in
Percival David (inv. no. PDF A ). The motif is a fable
associated with Daoism as it was on the moon that the entry no. , and on three examples in the Topkapi Saray

(inv. nos. / , / , and / ). Bumblebees

also appeared on the border designs of saucer dishes

a

Fig. a hare ground the elixir of immortality with a pestle and with bracket-lobed rims, as seen on an example in

Detail Still Life with mortar. Thus the hare (tu-z), sometimes called ‘jade- the Casa-Museu Dr. Anastácio Gonçalves in Lisbon

a Pewter Flagon and Two hare’, is a symbol of longevity. It is the fourth creature in (inv. no. ). Similar stylized representations of

Ming Bowls /- ) the Chinese zodiac. bumblebees are shown on the panelled rims of a group
Jan Jansz Treck (
A comparable saucer dish depicting a similar hare of plates, of similar form to the example discussed in

(inv. no. NG ) seated in front of peach sprays (instead oflingzhi fungus) entry no. . These were recovered from the wreck of the

© The National Gallery, within a border of alternating peach sprays, flowers, Portuguese carrack Nossa Senhora dos Mártires, which

London and auspicious symbols, was one of a number ofkraak sank on September , on its return journey from

saucer dishes of this form recovered from the Dutch East India at the fortress of São Julião da Barra in the mouth

Indiaman, the Banda, which foundered on a reef on March of the Tagus river near Lisbon.

, o the coast of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean on its The aforementioned kraak porcelain wares recovered

return journey to Holland. A related hare motif is shown from two di erent shipwrecks, the Banda, a Dutch

on the central medallion of elevenkraak bowls of slightly East Indiamen, and the Nossa Senhora dos Mártires, a

lobed, ten-sided form with flared bracket-lobed rims in Portuguese carrack, demonstrate that these particular

the Topkapi Museum (inv. nos. / , - , - hare and bumblebee motifs were used on wares of

). They are decorated on their inner sides with ten fruit various forms made to be exported to Europe in the first

and flower sprays and on their outer sides with white deer two decades of the th century.

in front of ornamental taihu rocks. Saucer dishes of this type were imported to the

The odd-looking insect depicted on the teardrop Netherlands in the late th/early th century. Such

medallions of the present dish is most likely a stylized dishes, together with other types of kraak wares, would