Page 77 - For the Love of Porcelain

10 of a fisherman, one of the four ‘ideal modified but clearly recognisable variation
Jar in basket, China, occupations’ of fisherman, woodcutter, of the fisherman theme can be dated to
undated, porcelain farmer and scholar (yu qiao gen du). While 1816, as it was found on a ship that wrecked
painted in most of the vessels in the Pharmacy Museum in the Malacca Straits in the same year; it has
underglaze blue, show abstract meditations on the theme, the been attributed to Jingdezhen’s civil kilns. 17
Deutsches Apotheken- decoration of one jar displays a very succinct
Museum Heidelberg, image of an angler who stands in front of While this essay provides a brief overview
inv. no. II B 0428 a large body of water separated by three of the re-framings of three types of Chinese
trees from two shelter-like structures that ceramic containers in different European, in
11 represent the hermit’s temporary housing in particular Dutch, contexts, more research
Jar, China, undated, a secluded mountainous area (fig. 11). A jar has to be conducted into these jars from a
porcelain painted in of identical shape and decoration features in global perspective. While some scholarship
underglaze blue, a drawing by the Dutch artist Maurits van on Chinese trade in ceramic containers for
13
16 x 15.5 cm, Deutsches der Valk (1857–1935). Other examples the South Asian market exists, 18 additional
14
Apotheken-Museum have survived in museum collections, and studies are currently being conceptualised by
Heidelberg, the motif also appears on pharmacy grinding Eva Ströber and others. As illustrated by a
inv. no. II B 0424 bowls and mortars. A jar of identical shape last example from the Berlin collections
15
and decoration can be dated to before 1876, (fig. 12), jars that European collectors
12 as it was found in a fishing boat that sank continue to call ‘ginger jars’ were re-framed
Jar, West-Turkestan, in the Netherlands in 1876. 16 The earliest not only in Europe and South Asia, but also
undated, earthenware, datable example of this type with a slightly in places like West Turkestan.
Ethnologisches Museum,
Staatliche Museen zu
Berlin, Preußischer
Notes
Kulturbesitz, Berlin,
inv. no. I B 16497,
1 E. Ströber, La Maladie de Porcelaine, East Asian 7 Examples include Paul Cézanne, Pot de 13 Maurits van der Valk, Gemberpot met
photo: Martin Franken gingembre, c. 1895, oil on canvas, Barnes Chineesche poppetjes, 1880–1916, ink on
Porcelain from the Collection of Augustus the
Strong, Leipzig 2001, p. 36. Foundation, inv. no. BF23; Paul Cézanne, paper, reproduced in O. Barendsen,
2 A. Watsky, ‘Locating “China” in the Arts of Stilleben mit Blumen und Früchten, oil on ‘De humor in het werk van M. W. van der Valk’,
Sixteenth-Century Japan’, Art History 29(4) canvas, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Elsevier’s Geïllustreerd Maandschrift 52 (1916),
(2006), p. 603 and pp. 613–24 (600–24). inv. no. A I 965. p. 441 (441–51). Source: https://rkd.nl/nl/
3 Examples include: Victoria and Albert 8 Olive green examples include: lidded jar, explore/images/105099. Accessed 28 April
Museum, London, museum nos. Zhangzhou, 1575–1625, private collection, 2016.
C.819&A-1910, 274&A-1886, C.821&A-1910; published in S. Ostkamp, ‘Exportkeramiek uit 14 Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz,
British Museum, London, reg. no. Franks Zhangzhou’, Vormen uit Vuur 206/207(3-4) Berlin, inv. no. H V 73 A; Fries Scheepvaart
144; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, acc. no. (2009), p. 25, (16–37); Schloss Friedenstein, Museum, 1985-227 (sailors’ souvenirs
95.542, 13.1556; Metropolitan Museum of Gotha, inv. no. C480K. collection); Schloss Friedenstein Gotha,
Art, New York, acc. nos. 79.2.265a, b; 9 A.-L. Muir, ‘Ceramics in the Collection of the inv. nos. C404K, C591K, C599K. Groningen
Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C., acc. Museum of Chinese Australian History, Museum, inv. no. 1930.0412.
nos. F1992.14a-b, F1995.3.2a-b, F1995.3.1a-b; Melbourne’, Australasian Historical 15 P. Unschuld, Medicine in China: Historical
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Wien, inv. Archaeology 21 (2003), pp. 45–46, p. 46 Artifacts and Images, Munich/London/New
nos. KE 8835, KE 8196; Staatliche Kunstsamm- (42–49); National Maritime Museum, York 1999, p. 155, plate 61, and in a slightly
lungen, Dresden, inv. nos. PO 1164, PO 1165, Greenwich, inv. no. AAA6190; Oakland modified version, p. 154, plate 55.
PO 1166, PO 1167; Princessehof National Museum of Canada, inv. no. H74.639.2177. 16 Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed,
Museum of Ceramics, Leeuwarden, inv. no. 10 For comparison see, for example, Fairy and afdeling Scheepsarcheologie, Lelystad,
NO 2216. Crane, 18th century, China, embroidery with OF60-170; source:
4 British Museum, acc. no. Franks 1009; silk, pearls and coral beads, Metropolitan http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/?/nl/
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, acc. Museum of Art, acc. number 25.59.1. items/NISA01:1131 (accessed 28.4.2016).
It is within collections of medical material Cézanne’s and Hagemeister’s still lifes nos. 65.155.53a, b; Staatliche Museen, Berlin, 11 Muir (op. cit. note 9), p. 46. N. Wood, Chinese 17 British Museum, inv. no. 1995,0619.1.a-b;
culture rather than museums of ceramics or (fig. 10). While these braided casings that acc. no. ID 37 509; examples that can be Glazes: Their Origins, Chemistry, and Recreation, source: http://www.britishmuseum.org/
found on online auction platforms are too London 1999, p. 224. research/collection_online/collection_
applied arts that the third significant type of provide the porcelain body with a handle 12 See F. Scollard, Shiwan Ceramics: Beauty, Color, object_details.aspx?objectId=226258&part
numerous to cite.
ginger jar can be situated. appear frequently in nineteenth- and mid- 5 E. Ströber, Symbols on Chinese Porcelain: 10.000 And Passion, San Francisco 1994, pp. 41, 44, Id=1&searchText=no.+1995,0619.1.
twentieth-century still lifes, this example is x Happiness, Stuttgart 2011, p. 132. 61; Y.-C. Huang (ed.), The Shiwan-Ware Ceramic a-b&page=1. Accessed 29 April 2016.
6 Piet Mondriaan, Stilleven met gemberpot I, Collections of the National Museum of History, 18 M. Hsieh, ‘The 16th and 17th Century Chinese
Eight ‘ginger jars’ are inventoried in the one of the few that has been preserved. In Stilleven met gemberpot II, 1911–12, oil on Taipei 1995, pp. 105, 106, 124. Ceramics excavated at Hongwulan-Site, Yilan,
German Pharmacy Museum. One of them the Pharmacy Museum the jar in a casing is canvas, 65.5 x 75 cm, Taiwan’, Taoci Shouji 2 (2012), pp. 147–49.
features the same woven grass or bamboo paired with other examples without casings Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, acc. no.
L295.76.
casing that is prominently depicted in that all show underglaze blue depictions

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