Page 139 - Chinese and japanese porcelain silk and lacquer Canepa

Fig. 3.1.1.13 Fragment of a Kraak plate Fig. 3.1.1.16 Kraak plate (reconstructed) from
Fig. 3.1.1.15 Kraak plate from the wreck from the wreck site of the shipwreck Santo
site of the shipwreck Nossa Senhora dos Alberto (1593)
Mártires (1606)
Jingdezhen kilns, Jiangxi province Fig. 3.1.1.14 Shards of a Kraak frog-shaped
Ming dynasty, Wanli reign (1573–1620) kendi from the wreck site of the shipwreck
© Filipe Vieira de Castro, Texas A&M University
Santo Alberto (1593)
Jingdezhen kilns, Jiangxi province
Ming dynasty, Wanli reign (1573–1620)
© Valerie Esterhuizen, South Africa
Archaeological evidence of porcelain from Portuguese shipwrecks, colonial Verlag Bernhard Albert Greiner, 2014, p. 20. Since the
settlements, Portuguese cities and extant pieces 1960s, a considerable number of Kraak dishes and
plates have been unearthed from late Ming tombs
No Portuguese shipwrecks have been found so far dating to the decades of the 1570s in southern Jiangxi province. These tombs, dating
from 1573 to 1645, are all situated in Nancheng,
and 1580s, which are reported as having carried porcelain among their cargoes. The Guangchang and nearby areas along the mayor
75
earliest archaeological finds of Kraak and other blue-and-white trade porcelain from waterway transportation routes between Jingdezhen
and overseas trade ports in the neighbouring Fujian
Portuguese shipwrecks date to 1593, the year the nau Santo Alberto sank off Sunrise- and Guangdong provinces. Nearly all Kraak finds
have firing imperfections (badly cracked at the centre
on-Sea in South Africa (Appendix 3). The Kraak shards formed part of plates with and/or warped). It is believed that such defective
76
a white cavetto and continuous naturalistic border, plates with borders divided by pieces would have been purchased at a very low price
to be used in tombs as burial goods, and that this
double lines (Fig. 3.1.1.13), saucer dishes with a star-shaped medallion or with lotus- may reflect the long Jingdezhen tradition of finding
a market for its large quantities of porcelain seconds.
petal borders outlined in blue and other shards that most probably formed part of For a recent discussion on this subject, see Baoping
frog-shaped kendis, which belong to a group of Kraak zoomorphic kendis first made Li, ‘Discoveries and interpretation of Ming Dynasty
export porcelain from tombs in China’, in Cheng,
at private kilns of Jingdezhen during the Wanli reign for both the Middle Eastern and 2012, pp. 203–215.
67 Although the raw materials (porcelain stone and
European markets, also known in the shape of elephants, cows (or water buffaloes), kaolin) are similar to those of the Jiajing porcelain
squirrels and lobsters (Fig. 3.1.1.14) (Appendix 2). Visual sources attest to the imported by the Portuguese into Europe about two
77
decades earlier, in the 1550s, both the manufacturing
Portuguese trade in such zoomorphic kendi at the time, as two examples appear depicted technique and decoration differed significantly.
The methods used by Kraak potters to economise
on board the Black Ship anchored at Nagasaki in a Namban six-panel folding screen, materials and facilitate mass-production will be
briefly discussed in section 3.4.1 of this Chapter.
one of a pair, dating to c.1600, in a private collection. As discussed elsewhere, the 68 Mentioned in George Bryan Souza, The Survival of
78
Portuguese trade in various types of Kraak porcelain in the early seventeenth century is Empire: Portuguese Trade and Society in China and
the South China Sea, 1630–1754, Cambridge, 1986,
well documented by finds from five shipwrecks that sank on their homeward journeys: pp. 35–36. The Leiden University library reference is
the Nossa Senhora dos Mártires sank in 1606 near Lisbon at the fortress of São Julião da BPL 876. I am grateful to my PhD supervisor, Professor
Dr. Christiaan J.A. Jörg, for providing me with a typed
Barra in the mouth of the Tigus River (Fig. 3.1.1.15); the small nau São Gonçalo, one transcription of this document.
79
69 The term ‘boião’, of apparently unknown origin, refers
of five ships offered by the Crown to the newly founded India Company, sank in 1630 to a pot, generally of clay or porcelain. According to
138 Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer
Fig. 3.1.1.17 and Fig. 3.1.1.18 Fragments and the wreck site of the shipwreck IDM-003,
most probably the Nossa Senhora da
sketch-drawings of two Kraak dishes from Consolação (1608)
the wreck site of the shipwreck
Jingdezhen kilns, Jiangxi province
Nossa Senhora da Luz (1615)
Jingdezhen kilns, Jiangxi province Ming dynasty, Wanli reign (1573–1620)
© Arqueonautas Foundation, Amsterdam
Ming dynasty, Wanli reign (1573–1620)
© Carla Fernandes and
José António Bettencourt
Soares, the Portuguese introduced this term into near Port Elizabeth in Plettenburg Bay; the naveta Santa Maria Madre de Deus
80
81
India. Anthony Xavier Soares, Portuguese Vocables sank in 1643 in Eastern Cape; the Nossa Senhora de Atalaya do Pinheiro sank in June
82
in Asiatic Languages From the Portuguese Original of
M. S. R. Dalgado, Translated into English with Notes, 1647 near the Cefane river north-east of East London; and the large ship Santíssimo
83
Additions and Comments, New Delhi and Madras,
1988, p. 53. Sacramento sank a month later in Sardinia Bay, near Port Elizabeth. Recently, research
84
70 Souza, 1986, p. 122. has brought to light three further Portuguese shipwrecks that carried Kraak among
71 Vieira de Castro, 2005, p. 16.
72 Boyajian, 1993, p. 48. their cargoes: IDM-003, most probably the Nossa Senhora da Consolação which sank
73 A quintal is about 130 pounds. Ibid., p. 49.
74 Mentioned in White, 2004–2005, p. 76. in 1608 off the island of Mozambique (Fig. 3.1.1.16); the large Nossa Senhora da
85
75 No porcelain appears to have been aboard a Luz sank in 1615 on the southern coast of the island of Faial (also known as Fayal) in
Portuguese ship, believed the be the Santo António,
which sank in Boudeuse Cay, Amiramnte Isles, the archipelago of the Azores (Figs. 3.1.1.17 and 3.1.1.18); and the São João Baptista
86
Seychelles, in 1589. Vieira de Castro, 2005, p. 28.
76 n Eastern Cape, the Kraak shards that have washed sank in 1622 near the Great Fish River in Eastern Cape. Further evidence is found
87
I
up on the beaches of Haga-Haga, Morgan’s Bay and in the Wanli shipwreck, a small vessel (about 80-tons) probably owned by Portuguese
Black Rock are presumably part of the cargo of the
Santo Alberto. For further information on the Santo private merchants, believed to have sank on the east coast of Malaysia in c.1625 while
Alberto porcelain, see Esterhuizen, 2001, Appendix
B, pp. 277–278; Canepa, 2008–2009, p. 62; Laura sailing from Macao (Appendix 3). The cargo of this shipwreck, containing the largest
88
Valerie Esterhuizen, ‘Chinese porseleinvondste aan Kraak assemblage found to date (ranging from high to low quality), includes shards
die kus tussen Morganbaai en Haga-Haga’, in Schalk
W. Le Roux and Roger C. Fisher (eds.), Festschrift in of two square-shaped bottles – modelled after European glass, stoneware or faience
honour of ter ere van O.J.O. Ferreira, Gordons Bay,
South Africa, 2010, pp. 97–100; and Canepa, 2012/1, – bearing the arms attributed to the families Vilas Boas and Faria, or Vaz. These
89
pp. 260–261, figs. 1 and 2.
77 For a discussion on frog-shaped kendis, see bottles belong to a group of Kraak porcelain specially ordered with European designs
Vinhais and Welsh, 2008/2, pp. 180–183, no. 26 and during the reigns of Wanli, Tianqi and Chongzhen for the Portuguese, Spanish and
pp. 184–187, no. 27.
78 Published in Weston, 2013, p. 93, fig. 1b and p. 38, German nobility, as well as the clergy, which will be discussed in section 3.4.1 of this
fig. 1 (detail).
79 I am grateful to Filipe Vieira de Castro, Nautical Chapter. The cargo of the Wanli shipwreck also includes a number of blue-and-white
Archaeology Program, Department of Anthropology, bowls decorated with four medallions, each depicting one of the Eight Immortals,
Texas A&M University, for providing me with images
of Kraak porcelain recovered from the shipwreck. reserved on a ground of repeated shou (meaning longevity) characters below a border
Trade in Chinese Porcelain 139