Page 70 - For the Love of Porcelain

We Call Them Ginger Jars European Re-framings of Chinese Ceramic Containers

this essay focuses on a prominent case of transcultural exchange in material culture. it considers

three types of ceramic containers made in China in different time periods that were all equally

received as ‘ginger jars’ by european collectors.
Anna Grasskamp and Wen-ting Wu

Starting with the most well-known and
widespread type, ‘ginger jars’ produced
during the reign of Emperor Kangxi (1661-
1722), this essay moves on to painted
representations of ceramic containers in
1 European still lifes. The titles of these
Jar with lid - Ginger jar, paintings indicate two strikingly different
China, Jingdezhen, types of ceramic vessels as ‘ginger jars’.
1683 - 1710, The terms ginger jar, Ingwertopf and pot
porcelain painted in de gingembre derive from the earlier Dutch
underglaze blue, gemberpot, which might be associated
26.5 x 21.9 cm, Victoria with confijt pot, a description that, as Eva
and Albert Museum, Ströber has pointed out, appeared in Dutch
London, ship inventories of 1635. 1 Although such
inv. no. C.820&A-1910 containers were not necessarily used for
© Victoria and Albert preserving ginger, they could and did store
Museum, London spices, tea, dried food, and pickled fruits or
vegetables, and liquid or solid substances understood as an act of creative transcultural 2
for medical use. This essay, however, focuses re-framing on behalf of Europeans. New De Leeuwarder
on the vessels themselves, adding the three frameworks of collecting as articulated Lakkamer in het
most important types of ‘ginger jars’ to through interior design arrangements, still Rijksmuseum,
a history of Chinese ceramic containers life representations and object imitations, Leeuwarden, before
in transcultural exchange. Comparable historically transformed Chinese ceramic 1695, kuan cai
to the ‘critical creative act’ that Andrew vessels from items used for storage and as gift lacquer and gilded lime
Watsky observes in the re-contextualisation containers to objects of display. The essay is wood, 514 x 305,9 x
of Chinese storage jars in Japanese tea concerned with this re-framing of the empty 295,6 cm, Rijksmuseum
ceremony practices, 2 the European re- jars as evidenced through terminology as Amsterdam,
contextualisation of empty Chinese storage well as contemporary and historic collecting inv. no. BK-16709 ©
vessels as objects of display can also be contexts. Rijksmuseum,Amsterdam

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