Page 101 - Chinese and japanese porcelain silk and lacquer Canepa

Fig. 2.3.1.3 Brevis exactaque totius Novi
Orbis eiusque insularum descriptio recens a
Joan. Bellero edita, Pedro de Cieza de Leon,
Chronica del Peru ..., Antwerp, 1554
© John Carter Brown Library, Brown University,
Providence

Opposite page left
Fig. 2.3.1.4 Length of silk damask
China, Ming dynasty, second half of
the sixteenth century
Dimensions: 189.2cm x 73.7cm
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Rogers Fund, 1940 (acc. no. 40.27.2)

Opposite page right
Fig. 2.3.1.5 Length of furnishing silk satin
China, Ming dynasty, c.1500–1600
Dimensions: 226.5cm x 79cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of
Miss Lucy T. Aldrich (Acc. no. 35.687)

woven with a repeated design of a double-headed crowned eagle grasping an arrow elephant described in a Chinese translation of a sutra of the fifth century as being
of the Mid to Late Ming, The Huaihaitang Collection,
in each claw that pierce a heart-shaped vase amid scrolling leaves supported by two Hong Kong, 2012, pp. 122–123, no. 12 and resplendent and white and having lotuses, jade maidens, and other symbolic figures
pp. 172–173, no. 36, respectively.
confronted Asian elephants with multiple tusks, alternating with large-scale lotus at the end of each tusk. 363 It is well known that elephants were given as tribute to the
359 Two such fragments can be found in the Metropolitan
flowers growing from globular containers on stands, all in yellow-brown on a blue Museum of Art, Acc. nos. 34.41.9 (red, blue and emperor by rulers from South East Asia, and were also presented as diplomatic gifts
yellow) and 34.41.1 (blue and yellow). Mentioned are somewhat mismatched at the join. Discussed
ground (Fig. 2.3.1.4). Although the symmetrical arrangement of this design most in Peck, 2013, p. 157, note 1. For a fragment in and published by Phipps and Denney in Peck, 2013, to important foreign kings. Research by Jordan Gschwend has shown that elephants
362
probably derives from contemporary European textiles, the colour scheme appears the Victoria and Albert Museum, museum no. pp. 157–158, no. 16. and other exotic animals were shipped from India and Ceylon to Lisbon. The first
T.169–1929; and one other in the Museum Für 363 Guan Puxian pu sa xing fa jing (Sutra on the Practice
to be Chinese. Compare, for example, the colour scheme of a length of furnishing Ostasiatische Kunst in Cologne, see Digby, 1940, pl. of Visualizing the Bodhisattva Samantbhadra), elephants were sent in 1510. Some were later offered as gifts by the Portuguese kings
I, E and F, respectively. in Alexander Coburn Soper, ‘Literary Evidence
cloth made in silk satin weave, dating to c.1500–1600, in the Museum of Fine to the courts of Spain, Austria, France and England. However, it seems unlikely that
364
360 The cope, inv. no. 973.422, is published in John E. for Early Buddhist Art in China’, Artibus Asiae,
Arts, Boston (Fig. 2.3.1.5). In this design made to order, the Chinese weavers again Vollmer, E. J. Keall and E. Nagai-Berthrong, Silk Supplementum 19 (1959), p. 223. Mentioned in Peck, the inclusion of the elephant motif was a specific request of the European customer
Roads, China Ships, exhibition catalogue, Royal 2013, pp. 157–158, note 2.
combined the single European motif of the double-headed eagle with Chinese floral Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1983, p. 19. For the 364 For a discussion on this subject, see Annemarie who ordered the silk damask, who most probably did not understand its Buddhist
and animal motifs. The rendering of the petals of the lotus flowers and the scrolling fragments in the Victoria and Albert Museum, see Jordan Gschwend and Johannes Beltz, Elfenbeine connotation. The place of manufacture of this silk damask, like the silks discussed
the online museum’s catalogue, each illustrated aus Ceylon. Luxusgüter für Katharina von Habsburg
leaves that surround the double-headed eagle are particularly close to those seen in the separately as museum no. T.217–1910. (1507–1578), exhibition catalogue, Museum above, is still unknown.
aforementioned silk satin weave. Of particular interest is the inclusion of the Asian 361 Digby, 1940, p. 60; and Peck, 2013, p. 157. Rietberg, Zurich, 2010, pp. 127–147. One of the earliest extant embroidered silks made to order is an altar frontal, now
362 The length of cloth comprises two widths of cloth 365 Discussed and published by Pacheco Ferreira in
elephant with multiple tusks, which probably represents the Buddhist six-tusked seamed together, each with identical patters that Levenson, 2009, pp. 324–324, no. 144. housed in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon (Fig. 2.3.1.6). This altar
365

100 Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer Trade in Chinese Silk 101