Page 9 - Met Museum Export Porcelain 2003

at the time, the wood models would have 7. Bottle. Chinese (Continental market), ca. I7I5-25. Hard paste. H. 9'/2 in.
copied examples in other materials, most (24.I cm). Helena Woolworth McCann Collection, Purchase,Winfield
likely pewter or silver. Wood models are Foundation Gift, 1982 (1982.27)
referredto intermittentlyby the Dutch as late
as 1757 (and once, in 1710, by the English), Theserenerhythmof thespiralingbandsimitatesthe opaquewhite threadsof
but none is known to have survived and Venetianlatticino glass of thelate sixteenthcentury.This decorativetechnique
was well known in theNetherlandsin the earlyi6oos throughItalian emigre
evidence of their use can only be inferred glassworkersand Dutch copiesand continuedinpracticeinto the eighteenth
(figs. 5, 6). Other materials also came into century.Thepoint of departureforthis exampleis likelyto have beena
play: plates with flat, wide rims in imitation of contemporaneoums odel.
a Dutch pewter model were requested by the
VOCin 1634, and earthenware forms were II
supplied for the Japan trade in 1661. Several
later shapes have been traced directly or
indirectlyto glass (figs. 6, 7). Withthe rise of
Europeanceramics factories, export shapes
were increasingly drawn from the pottery
repertoire, in a practice of trading up from
a lesser materialthat would be followed

through the eighteenth century (figs. 34, 37).
Withthe issue of utilityin hand, the Dutch

turned to the matter of decoration. European
customers may have demanded Western
shapes to suit their domestic customs, but at
the same time they clung to the unfamiliar
charm of Chinese decorative style. In 1635
and again in 1637 the VOCinsisted on orna-
ment "inthe Chinese manner and in the

custom of their country,"furtherobserving
that "Dutchpaintings, flower or leafwork ...
should be excused entirely, because the Dutch
paintings on porcelain are not considered
strange nor rare."This injunction notwith-
standing, Western motifs began to infiltrate
Chinese decorative schemes without disturb-

ing their rhythm:tulips stretched up the long
necks of bottles, Western gabled buildings
were set in landscapes with Chinese figures
(fig. 4), friezes were punctuated by grotesque
masks. These and other decorative incursions

make it clear that a mechanism for receiving
and employing Western images was well
established by the VOCby the mid-1630s.