Page 45 - Zhangzhou Or Swatow The Collection of Zhangzhou Ware at the Princessehof Museum, Leeuwarden, Netherlands

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Volker reports for the1630’s : “Though the bulk of the porcelain, especially for the home market, was now
conveyed from Formosa to Batavia in Dutch ships and Company junks, Chinese junks kept sailing for Batavia
direct. Most of the porcelain in their cargoes, however, was of a different variety, the so called “coarse
porcelain”, the principal ceramic commodity of the insular trade in those days.

The popularity of coarse porcelain in the archipelago is documented by the records of the VOC.

Three or four junks came to Bantam each year, with a cargo of raw and woven silk, silk thread, and fine and
coarse porcelain .
A VOC account of 1608 states, that 150 pieces, 1- 4 bundles of coarse porcelain bowls costing 60 florins were
shipped to Sukadana on the west coast of the island of Borneo. On September 11, 1617, Cryn van Raemborgh
reports that from the vessel Arent, off Jambi, Sumatra, coarse dishes are in demand there. In 1633 and 1634,
“the usual junks arrived at Batavia with quantities of coarse porcelain” .

In 1634 the king of Aceh, ruler of a powerful Muslim kingdom, ordered a shipment of coarse porcelain, which
in all probability refers to Zhangzhou ware. In 1636 he received the porcelain he had ordered, a total of
120.400 pieces, an amazing number.
Large orders of coarse porcelain continued to be made in the early 1640’s. The VOC ship Van de Grafft, which
sailed from Formosa to Batavia in 1640, had a cargo of 33.229 pieces of fine porcelain and 63. 570 pieces of
coarse porcelain.

In 1641 the dagh registers of the VOC mention for the first time the orders of 300 “red food dishes”. Could
this refer to the Zhangzhou red and green wares, what the Japanese called gosu akae?

It is difficult to identify forms and designs of different types of ceramics from material based on commercial
documents. Large dishes of the grove porseleinen are mentioned, and that they are traded in the inter-island
trade. After 1624, when the Fort Zeelandia was established on Taiwan, the VOC became more interested in
the ceramic production for Europe and new markets in Japan as well.

Some of the most splendid dishes from the Princessehof collection stem from this period, the second quarter
th
of the 17 century, when the South of China was still untouched by the collapse of the Ming , and the Dutch
had a brief sojourn on independent Taiwan.

Ref.: Volker 1954

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