Page 8 - Zhangzhou Or Swatow The Collection of Zhangzhou Ware at the Princessehof Museum, Leeuwarden, Netherlands

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Collecting Zhangzhou (Swatow) on Sumatra: Reinier D. Verbeek

The mining engineer Reiner D. Verbeek (1841-1926) was a friend of Nanne Ottema. Verbeek had worked on
Sumatra, where he collected Chinese and Japanese porcelain, particularly Zhangzhou (Swatow) ware. In 1910
he was repatriated and settled in The Hague, and in 1917 he donated a part of his collection to the museum.
After Verbeek died in 1926, his heirs donated further ceramic gifts to the museum in 1929 and again in the
1940s and 1950s.

Reinier Dirk Verbeek. Photograph undated

The island of Sumatra occupies a strategic position on the major ancient East-West maritime trade route. It
was known as Suvarnadvipa, the Island of Gold, according to Indian sources. Traditionally on this island Chinese
porcelain was highly appreciated as status symbols by a wealthy class of Muslims. There were also areas where
pre-Islamic beliefs were still strong, and so foreign Chinese ceramics had special significance for their “magic”
qualities.
Verbeek had published two long articles about his collection. One would expect that he would give some
background information on the circumstances and the context where and how he found the pieces of his
collection, but he only remarks that the collection comes “from the various corners of our East Indian
archipelago”.
His real interest was to put together a collection representative of the development of Chinese porcelain from
the Song dynasty (960–1279) onwards, a collection of all types of Chinese – and Japanese – porcelain (he
collected Japanese ceramics, too, subsuming it under Chinese wares). Lacking all the material available now, it
seems he relied on old obscure Chinese texts and tried to match these vague descriptions to the porcelains he
had collected. Many of the export pieces, particularly Zhangzhou (Swatow) wares, are heavy and sturdy and
decorated in an unrefined style with the bases left uncleaned – which Verbeek in many cases interpreted as a
sign of antiquity.

Ref.: van Campen 2003; Stroeber 2013

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