Page 119 - Loss of the VOC Retourschip Batavia, Western Australia, 1629

BAT 326
This is one of the more interesting ceramic objects in
the collection. The jug has three sprigged medallions: the central medallion is a grotesque face, flanked by lions pas- sant The lions are surprisingly crudely executed in com- parisonwith therestofthesprigging.Totheleftofthecen- tral medallion (when viewed from the front) is a medallion bearing the name !AN ALLERS on a ribbon, below which is a rampant unicorn supporting a shield charged with a bugle horn. This is the emblem of the City of Room and an almost identical illustration is found on the cover of Willem Ysbrantsz. Bontekoe's Memnrable Descrip-
tion ofthe East Indian Voyage 1618-25 printed at Room by lsaac Willemsz. far Jan Jansz. Dentel, Bookseller in the East Street in Biestkins, in 1646. The whole illustration of the unicorn
10·'·
and the horn may be a pun on the name of
the city. The connection with Jan (Ian)
Allers is obscure. Jan Allers was a
skipper and merchant from the town of
Nijmegen, exporting Raren pottery
(Raren is a small town in Belgium near
Aachen famous for pottery) (Linon,
1963; van Loo, 1984). A similar medal-
lion is illustrated in Linon (1963:25),
who states that the Arms has no known
connection with Nijmegen. Recently, van
Loo (1984) has illustrated a number of iden-
tical medallions on beardman jugs. These in-
cludebeardmans from the Museum ofLondon, ex-
cavated Moorgate Street 1912, Fig. 15 and from Thames
Street 1923, Fig. 16. Another similar medallion is illustrated (Fig. 17) from the Westfries Museum, Room. Other me- dallions with the same motif include a broken jug from the MuseC Communal des Beaux Artes, Fig. 13 and a shenkkan from the Westfries Museum, Room, Fig. 14. Linon (1963), van Loo (1984) and Rellebrandt (1977) illustrate the Arms ofJan Allers, which do not resemble the medallion on BA T 326. Another example (von Bock, 1971: No. 367) on a brown jug with a reeded neck from Raren has a unicarn supporting a globe. Allers is discussed by von Falke (1908), van Loo (1984) and Gllbels (1971).
Theright-hand medallion shows the impaled Arms ofSebastian von Hatzfield and his wife Lucia von Sickingen. They were the parents of Field Marshal Melchior of the Thirty Years War fame.
In the upper part of this medallion, above the crown, are the numbers '95', representing the date 1595. It is possible that the jug was an heirloom on the Batavia, but the presence of at least five ather Hatzfield-Sickingen medallion fragments suggests that this is unlikely. Further, there is no evidence af wear on the base, which would suggest a long working life. The more reasonable explanation is that the date does not reflect the year of manufacture and the sprig moulds were old.
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