Page 60 - For the Love of Porcelain
P. 60

7
             Tympanum on the back
               of Amsterdam Town
                Hall, engraving by
             Hubertus Quellinus in                                                                                                                                                               9
               J. van Campen and                                                                                                                                                                 Gerard de Lairesse
            J. Vennekool, Afbeelding                                                                                                                                                             (1641 - 1711), De
              van ’t Stadthuys van                                                                                                                                                               Stedenmaagd van
                Amsterdam (…),                                                                                                                                                                   Amsterdam, ca. 1675,
                Amsterdam 1661,                                                                                                                                                                  oil on canvas,
                   Rijksmuseum,                                                                                                                                                                  130 x 144 cm,
                    Amsterdam,                                                                                                                                                                   Amsterdam Museum,
              inv. no. GF 382 B 22                                                                                                                                                               inv. no. SA 34496

                                                                                                                              9
                                                                                                                       America’.   In fact, his remark is a comforting   porcelain=Asia, which is obvious to us, but
                                                                                                                       observation to conclude this essay. If he  not to Ripa, was obvious to Taylor too.
                                                                                                                       could recognise ‘the triumph of Asia’ in  And we will have to accept the fact that he
                                                                                                                       this painting, then it was only because  mentioned neither Jiajing nor Portugal’s
                                                                                                                       of the porcelain vase. The relationship  faded glory.






           8
                   Detail of ig. 7
                                                                                                                       Notes

                                                                                                                         1  E. Kolfin, ‘Omphalos Mundi: The Pictorial    4  J. van Campen and J. Vennekool, Afbeelding    6  J. van Tatenhoven, ‘Miscelanea 3. Gerard
                                                                                                                            Tradition of the Theme of Amsterdam and the       van ’t Stadthuys van Amsterdam (…),        Lairesse (1640–1711)’, Delineavit en et sculpsit
                               The choice of a Jiajing vase is also intriguing   porcelain, entirely different from the Jiajing        Four Continents, circa 1600-1665’, in        Amsterdam 1661, often bound together with       11 (1993), p. 29. fig. 6. In a drawing made as
                                                                                                                            W.A. Boschloo et al. (ed.), Aemulatio; Imitation,       H. Quellinus, Prima [et secunda] pars        a pre-study by Lairesse, the porcelain is,
                               because Amalia can arguably be identified  jar in the painting.
                                                                                                                            Emulation and Invention in Netherlandish Art       praecipuarum eigierum ac ornamentorum       however, still absent. In this drawing, the
                               as the pre-eminent seventeenth-century                                                       from 1500 to 1800; Essays in Honor of Eric Jan       amplissimae Curiae Amstelodamensis, the first       woman holding the plate reaches over a
                               porcelain collector. In 1642, she received a  And what about her contemporaries? Did       Sluijter, Zwolle 2011, pp. 382–92.       [and second] part of the voornaemste statuen       large cloth-wrapped bundle in the same
                                                                                                                         2  K.H. Corrigan et al. (ed.), Asia in Amsterdam;       ende cieraten van ’t konst-rijcke stadt-huys van       posture as in the painting.
                               large quantity of porcelain – 642 pieces – as   they also notice that the jar was so old? And        The Culture of Luxury in the Golden Age (exh.  Amstelredam, Amsterdam 1655.    7  M. van Eikema Hommes and E. Kolfin,
                               a gift from the Dutch East India Company   did they understand its nuanced meaning?          cat. Rijksmuseum and Peabody Essex     5  A. Jager, ‘Als koningin op de troon; de ver-  De Oranjezaal in Huis ten Bosch; een zaal uit
                                                                                                                            Museum), Salem, etc. 2015, no. 2.       heerlijking van de Amsterdamse zeevaart’,       loutere liefde, Zwolle 2013.
                               (VOC), and in 1648 and 1649, at the same   Nothing to that effect is found in the
                                                                                                                         3  O.D. Dapper, Historische beschryving der stadt  Amstelodamum 95(3-4) (2008), pp. 67–80.    8  Corrigan 2015, pp. 170–71 with references to
                               time that work was being carried out at Huis   sources. An English traveller, Joseph Taylor,   Amsterdam (…), Amsterdam 1663; [T. van                      other interpretations.
                               ten Bosch, she created new porcelain displays   recognised the depiction of the continents  Domselaer], Beschryvinge van Amsterdam (…),                 9  K. van Strien, Touring the Low Counties;
                                                                                                                            Amsterdam 1665; F. von Zesen, Beschreibung                    Accounts of British Travellers, 1660–1720,
                               in the Oude Hof in The Hague. For this,  in sections of the triumphal procession:            der Stadt Amsterdam (…), Amsterdam 1664.                      Amsterdam 1998, p. 200.
                               she used the newest and most fashionable  ‘the triumphs of Europe, Asia, Africa and
                               56  I  vormen uit vuur                                                                                                                            vormen uit vuur  I  57
   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65