Page 182 - Chinese and japanese porcelain silk and lacquer Canepa

that already in the second half of the sixteenth century porcelain was incidentally and his wife Isabel da Vega in Antwerp. For more
information, see http://ximenez.unibe.ch/.
found in Dutch households. 303 The term New Christians refers to descendants
of Jewish families of Portugal who were forcibly
converted to Christianity in 1497.
Evidence of porcelain in the Northern Netherlands/Dutch Republic from the 304 The porcelain collections of the Medici family in Italy
are beyond the scope of this study. For information
establishment of the VOC in 1602 up to 1644 on this subject, see Francesco Morena, Dalle
Indie orientali alla corte di Toscana – Collezioni di
Porcelain was first brought in a more structured way into the Northern Netherlands as arte cinese e giapponese a Palazzo Pitti, Florence,
part of private consignments in 1599. That year, as mentioned earlier, Admiral Jacob 2005; and Maura Rinaldi, ‘The Italian Connection
– Florentine Traders in the East and the Medici
Cornelisz van Neck brought back to Amsterdam four ships with rich cargoes that Collection of the 16th and 17th Centuries’, in Cheng,
2012, pp. 116–129.
included porcelain. In December of the following year, Cornelis van Heemskerck, Vice 305 The inventory describes the residence as
Admiral for the fleet of Admiral Jacob Wilkens, wrote to the Directors in Amsterdam having had four floors and lists fifteen rooms or
spaces. For more information, see the section
stating that he was sending three private consignments as gifts to his father. Two of the ‘Emmanuel Ximenez’s Town Dwellings on the
Antwerp Meir’ in the above mentioned website
parcels, as recently noted by Viallé, contained only porcelain. One consisted of 224 http://ximenez.unibe.ch/..
pieces, the other of 92 pieces. A variety of shapes are listed, including butter plates, 306 I am grateful to Anne Gerritsen for the correct
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transcription of the word saucierkens, which
cameelscoppen (camel cups), fruit dishes, small cups, covered cups, saucers, stem means saucers.
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307 The contents of the ‘Cannery’ or bottling room
cups, small flasks, rose cups. There are also large, fine, moulded [?] cups, smaller cups included ‘A little basket with seven small porcelain
bowls’. Cited in Canepa, 2014/1, p. 35.
with blue borders, fine white angular saucers, fine white-and-blue cups, small painted 308 J. Veth and Samuel Muller, Albrecht Dürers
cups, a yellow covered cup and green cups in which to put ‘gibet’. Niederländische Reise, vol. 2, Berlin and Utrecht,
329
1918, pp. 192–193. Cited in Massing, 2009, p. 308;
It is well known that porcelain was also brought as booty seized from Portuguese and Canepa, 2014/1, p. 35.
ships trading in Asia at this time. The first, as mentioned earlier, was the porcelain 309 For a discussion on António de Fonseca’s inventories,
see James Nelson Novoa, ‘Unicorns and Bezoars in
cargo of the richly laden carrack São Tiago, sold in the autumn of 1602 in the port of a Portuguese house in Rome. António de Fonseca’s
Portuguese Inventories’, Ágora. Estudos Clássicos Figs. 3.2.1.2a, b and c Anonymous
Middelburg in the province of Zeeland, which belonged in part to the Italian Francesco em Debate 14.1 (2012), pp. 91–111; and James W. sketch-drawings of Chinese porcelain from
Carletti. According to Carletti, his porcelain included ‘an assortment of between 650 Nelson Novoa, ‘Saperi e gusti di un banchiere the logbook of the VOC ship Gelderland,
portoghese a Roma nel Renascimento. L’inventario
1601–1603
and 700 pieces, large and small, of plates, bowls and other luxuries’, which he bought di António da Fonseca’, Giornale di storia, 10 (2012), © Nationaal Archief, The Hague
pp. 1–19, in www.giornaledistoria.net (accessed
at very low prices. In addition, there were ‘two large vases, perhaps the largest that ever Sept 2014). I am grateful to James W. Nelson Novoa
for discussing the Fonseca inventories with me.
have been brought to Europe from those lands’ and ‘three others, and all of them full 310 Archivio di Stato di Roma, Notari del’Auditore della Fire in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels’, from fine to coarse, were available in the Northern Netherlands at this time. These
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of Chinese-made Ginger, which is the best’. Carletti mentions that he purchased this Camera Apostolica, 1055. Fol. 438r. The inventory in Annette Hoffman, Manuela DeGiorgi and documents would almost certainly have been referring to Kraak porcelain, which by
is published in Ibid., pp. 11-14. The original text Nicola Suthor (eds.), Synergies in Visual Culture –
assortment of porcelain ‘white and decorated in blue’ with the ‘help of the Fathers of the in Italian listing the pieces of porcelain reads: Bildkulturen im Dialog, Munich, 2013, pp. 499–512, then had been traded by the Portuguese and Spanish for over two decades. Most
337
figs. 1 and 2.
Society of Jesus, who also got the aforementioned vases for me’. Part of the porcelain ‘una scudella di porcellana com mirambola’ / ‘Un 314 For an extant example of this same shape and expensive were the very fine large dishes: three dishes for 3 guilders, 6 stivers and 8
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canestro con otto piatti piccolo et un grande di
cargo of the São Tiago, which according to Dutch records consisted of dishes and small porcellana e dui scudelle del medemo’ / ‘Un’altra decoration, formerly in the Mildred and Rafi pennies; and cheapest the half-sized small rose cups, at a penny each. Kraak klapmutsen,
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credenza di albuccio con dentro ventiuno piatti Mottahedeh Collection, see David S. Howard and
bowls, was given as gifts to the town of Middelburg and a number of its officials. 331 di porcellana grandi, sette piatti del medemo John Ayers, China for the West, vol. I, London and like that depicted alongside a saucer-dish, a dish and a cup of the type known as ‘crow
Then on February 1603, the Santa Catarina was captured in the Straits of Singapore mezzani, centodui piatti del medesimo ordinarii, New York, 1978, p. 50, no. 5. It is worth mentioning cup’ in drawings from the logbook of the Gelderland that year, are requested in three
un vaso grande a modo di cocozza di porcellana
that an almost identically decorated elephant-
while en route from Macao to Malacca. The proceeds from the sale of the booty by the ordinarie, venticinque vasi di porcellana di più sorte, shaped kendi is depicted in a Dutch still life different sizes (Figs. 3.2.1.2a, b and c). The purchase price for 3, ranged from 4, 5 to
sette scudelle grandi di porcellana, ventiquattro painting, monogrammed ‘W.F’, which was initially
newly established VOC, which took place in September of the following year, reached scudelline piccoline del medemo, una porcellana thought to be by Willem Kalf (1619–1693). For a 10 stivers according to size. The crew of the Gelderland must have considered that
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over 3 million guilders. According to the German publisher of travel accounts, Levinus grande da otto cantoni con suo coperchio, dui detail of this painting, housed in the Staatliche the porcelain was a novelty as somebody decided to make drawings of it.
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Kunstsammlungen, Weimar, see Carré, Desroches
cassetine d’avolio indurate, dicesette scudellini di
Hulsius, the ship’s cargo included ‘an innumerable quantity of porcelain vessels of all porcellana per la salsa, dui tazze di maiorica, una and Goddio, 1994, p. 316. By then the Directors of the VOC had an idea of which porcelain types, sizes and
escudella cepoerchiata di porcellana, cinquantatre 315 Van Linschoten, Book I. Cited in Volker, 1954, p. 21;
kinds, about 30 lasts, which is over a thousand hundredweight’. From Admiral Jacob vasi di terra di Portugallo’ / ‘Un’altra credenza and Julie Berger Hochstrasser, Still Life and Trade quantities would be required to satisfy the taste and demand not only of the Dutch
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van Heemskerck, whose fleet captured the Santa Catarina, we learn that it included murata con dentro: una cassetta d’avolio del in the Dutch Golden Age, New Haven and London, domestic market, but also of the international markets in Europe. Although regular
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2007, p. 124.
dottor Costa in pergno, quarantotto vasi di terra
both ‘much coarse and fine porcelain’. The States General, as the members of the di Portugallo, un vaso grande di porcellana con 316 Jan van Campen, ‘Chinese and Japanese porcelain orders were given to the Company servants in Asia to buy porcelain, without access
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suo coperchio, cinque piatti di porcellana grandi, in the interior’, in Van Campen and Eliëns, 2014,
Portuguese and Spanish royal courts had done earlier, sent some of the porcelain as altri tre più grande del medesimo, un catino pur p. 191. Van Campen mentions in p. 265, note 1, that to China the supply was intermittent. In 1607, a memorandum was given to the
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diplomatic gifts. For instance, five wooden cases filled with porcelain and other rarities di porcellana, dui scudelle piccolo et tre piatti del his essay includes information taken from Suzanne fleet of Admiral Pieter Willemsz Verhoeff and Vice Admiral François Wittert sailing to
Limburg, Porcelein in het interior in the 17de en
medemo’. I am greatly indebted to Maura Rinaldi for
were sent to King Henry IV of France (r. 1589–1610) and his wife, Maria de Medici translating the original Italian text into English. 18de eeuw, unpublished MA dissertation, Leiden Asia, with specific instructions on the porcelain that should be bought in Bantam and
311 Novoa, 2012/1, pp. 92, and 95–96. University, 2005.
(1573–1642). Some pieces were also sent to three French ministers. 312 Bruno Blondé, ‘Think Local, act Global? Hot drinks 317 Cited in Van Campen, 2014, p. 191. Patani. These included ‘A batch of beautiful, large bowls, which are not too deep,
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That same year, 1603, the Directors instructed the Company merchants sailing and the consumer culture of 18th century Antwerp’, 318 For the São João shards, see Esterhuizen, 2007/1, for a great many deep bowls have been brought on the carrack Santa Catarina, which
paper presented at the Goods from the East:
p. 3. The Enkhuizen shard, together with those two
to Asia to buy ‘a good batch of porcelain of various assortments, also a quantity of the Trading Eurasia 1600–1830 conference held at the recovered from the São João, and a dish (partially are too deep and too narrow’. The memorandum specifies that ‘one cannot bring too
Palazzo Pesaro-Papafava, Venice 11-13 January 2013, reconstructed) found during archaeological
largest dishes, because these were in demand in the Northern Netherlands, and yielded organized by the University of Warwick, p. 4 and p. excavations in Brunei confirm, as Yathim recently many fine, large pieces, even if they are pieces as large as the bottom of a barrel, as
8, Table 5.
more profit than spices’. This order, together with a list of prices (pryscourant) given 313 The painting is discussed and illustrated in Christine noted, that porcelain with Arabic inscriptions was long as the shape is fine and not warped or lopsided’. This suggests that some defective
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not only made as gifts to wealthy personalities in
by the Directors to the merchants for the range of porcelain that could be sold in Göttler, ‘The Alchemist, the Painter and the “Indian the Malay Islamic world, but also as trade goods. pieces of porcelain had been brought earlier. The ‘batch of coarse flat wares […], like
Bird”: Joining Arts and Cultures in Seventeenth- For images of this latter dish, see Othman Yathmin,
Amsterdam, informs us that a great variety of porcelain shapes, their quality ranging Century Antwerp. Adriaen van Utrecht’s Allegory of ‘Islamic ware as trade goods?’, in Roxanna M. Brown those that Jacob van Neck bought at Patani, which are so large that a Dutch cheese can
180 Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer Trade in Chinese Porcelain 181