Page 65 - Chinese and japanese porcelain silk and lacquer Canepa

profane context throughout Portugal. Embroidered or painted silks as well as
84
Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in
the 16th and 17th century. Essays, Lisbon, 2009, p. 315. variously coloured woven silk cloths were used to make garments worn by participants
81 Rank badges were worn during most of the Ming
dynasty. The iconography of the badges for all ranks of the festivities (robes, skirts, shawls and tunics), as well as liturgical ornaments (altar
became more complex in the late Ming, depicting frontals, wall hangings, curtains, valances, canopies, pavilions, etc.), which adorned
miniature landscapes inhabited by animals or birds
and an increase use of gold thread as the dominant the interior or exterior spaces where the ceremonies and processions took place, and
background colour. For a discussion on Ming
85
and Qing rank badges, see John E. Vollmer and the streets of the cities. The earliest known reference dates to 1595, when some
Jacqueline Simcox, Emblems of Empire. Selections relics where transferred from the cathedral of Coimbra to the Augustinian monastery
from the Mactaggart Art Collection, Edmonton,
2009, pp. 82–85; and Mary M. Dusenbury, Flowers, of the Holy Cross in the same city. A written account of the arrival of the relics
Dragons, & Pine Trees. Asian Textiles in the Spencer
Museum of Art, New York and Manchester, 2004, mentions that the clothes worn in the procession organized for this event were made
pp. 127–128. of ‘silk from China embroidered with birds of various colours, & …’. The next
86
82 Fr. Gaspar da Cruz, Tratado em que se cõtam muito por
esteso as cousas da China cõ suas particularidades, reference dates to fourteen years later, in 1609, when the body of Fray Batolomeu dos
assi do reino d’Ormuz, cõposto por el. R. padre frei Mártires was transferred to the new Dominican convent of the Holy Cross in Viana
Gaspar da Cruz da ordê de sam Domingos [Ms.
1569], in Raffaella D’Intino (ed.), Programa nacional do Castelo. During this sacred festivity, the balustrades and pillars of the church’s choir
de edições comemorativas dos descobrimentos
87
portugueses, Lisbon, 1989, p. 210. For a citation were ‘dressed in white silk from China’. White silk continued to be used to adorn
of the original text in Portuguese, see Maria João ecclesiastic spaces for several decades. Father Belchior de Santa Anna, writing in 1657,
Pacheco Ferreira, Os Têxteis Chineses em Portugal
nas Opções Decorativas Sacras de Aparato (séculos informs us that during the celebrations of the canonization of St. Teresa de Avila in
XVI–XVIII), unpublished PhD thesis, Universidade do
Porto, 2011, Vol. I, p. 189. the cloister of the Carmelite convent of Lisbon held in 1622, white silks from China
83 The rank badges were sewn together at the corners ‘covered its walls, & dressed its pillars, & arches’.
88
and down the sides of a hanging or curtain. They were
sold at auction and now found in private collections The silk cloths used in Jesuit festivities, as Pacheco Ferreira has remarked, not
around the world. I am grateful to Jacqueline only served as material testimonies of the Portuguese expansion to China and the
Simcox for providing me information and images of
two examples of the rank badges from the Palazzo Jesuit missionary activity there, but also had cultural, economic and political symbolic
Corsini, dating to the sixteenth century. The egret
89
rank badge illustrated here was first published in meanings. The account of Father João Sardinha Mimoso describing a theatrical
Jacqueline Simcox, ‘Chinese Textiles’, exhibition performance offered by the students of the Jesuit college of Saint Anthony for King
catalogue, London 2010, pp. 8–9, no. 5.
Philip III of Spain/II of Portugal (r. 1598–1621) (hereafter Philip III) during his visit
84 Pacheco Ferreira, 2011, pp. 348–351; and Maria João
Pacheco Ferreira, ‘Political Intentions of Chinese to Lisbon in 1619, informs us that the thirteen angels that appeared on the prologue of
Textiles in Portuguese Sacred, Solemn, Celebratory
Events of the 16th-18th Centuries’, in Textiles and the performance were dressed in ‘rich clothes [of] various colours of cloth, embroidered
Politics: Textile Society of America 13th Biennial
90
Symposium Proceedings, Washington, D.C., 2012, pp. brocades from China’. Mimoso also notes that a common space annexed to the stage
2 and 5.
where the King and members of the royal family attended the event was ‘hung with
I
85 bid., p. 2.
silks of various colours from China fresh, and perfumed’. Two accounts concerning
91
86 The original Portuguese text reads: ‘de seda da
China laurada de passarinhos de cores varias, & tão the Jesuit festivities held in 1620 and 1622 respectively, the beatification and then the
vivos, como naquellas partes of ha’. RELAÇAM do
Solenne recebimento das Santas Reliquias, que forão canonization of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Francis Xavier, refer to participants
leuadas da See de Coeimbra ao Real Mosteyro de of the processions wearing contemporary clothing items made of various silk cloths.
Santa Cruz. Coimbra: casa de Antonio Mariz, 1596,
fl. 48v. Cited in Pacheco Ferreira, 2011, Vol. I, pp. Father Diogo Marques Salgueiro, for instance, notes that the figure representing Faith
279–296. Pacheco Ferreira suggests that the terms
‘laurada de passarinhos’ indicate that the birds were wore a robe of white silk from China, and that of Ternate wore ‘very long over sleeves
embroidered.
of white silk from China, embroidered with many birds, & flowers of gold’. The
92
87 The original Portuguese text reads: ‘… os balustrades,
& pilaretes do Coro vestia seda branca da China anonymous author of the other account notes that the windows of the streets of Lisbon
tecida, & semeada de passarinhos varios nas cores were adorned with ‘many rich embroideries from China, & with glossy silks’, and
& nas feições pedurados de ramos verdes’. Luís
de Cacegas and Luís de Sousa, Vida de Dom Frei that during the procession held in Oporto the figure parading as an allegory of China
Bertolomev dos Martyres da Orde dos Pregadores
Arcebispo e Senhor de Braga Primas das Espanhas was ‘dressed in several silks, & colours, all of which came from that Kingdom to
repartida en seis liuros com a solenidade de sua Portugal’. From the information provided by the textual sources discussed above it
93
tresladação. Viana do Castelo: Niculao Carualho,
1619, fl. 256. Mentioned in Pacheco Ferreira, 2011, Vol. seems clear that the Jesuits and other religious orders possessed considerable quantities
I, p. 279 and Vol. II, p. 178.
of various types of silk cloths, especially of colourfully embroidered silks, which they
88 The original Portuguese text reads: ‘Cobriao suas
paredes, & vestiao seus pilares, & arcos’. Father used for public displays. These were most probably given to them as royal gifts or were
Belchior de Santa Anna, Chronica de Carmelitas
Fig. 2.1.1.4 Square rank badge for a Descalços, Particvlar do Reyno de Portugal e Provincia acquired through the Jesuits in Japan who participated actively in the silk trade from
six rank official e Sam Felippe, Lisboa: Off. De Henrique Valente de 1578 until their expulsion in 1639.
Embroidered in floss silks and gold thread Oliueira, 1657, p. 601. Cited in Pacheco Ferreira,
China, Ming dynasty, sixteenth century Vol. I, 2011, p. 283. Documentary evidence shows that by the early seventeenth century woven silk
Dimensions: 36.8cm x 38.1cm 89 Pacheco Ferreira, 2012, p. 5. cloths and finished silk products, imported from China and after about 1614 also from
Provenance: Palazzo Corsini, Florence 90 This theatrical piece was written by Father António Persia, had become more widely available to people from different social groups. 94
© Jacqueline Simcox Ltd. de Sousa and entitled Royal Tragicomedy of King

64 Trade in Chinese Silk 65