Page 197 - Chinese and japanese porcelain silk and lacquer Canepa

Fig. 3.2.1.20 Blue-and-white saucer dishes
excavated at Dokke, Vlissingen, in use
between 1600 and 1650
Jingdezhen kilns, Jiangxi province
Ming dynasty, Wanli/Chongzhen reign
(1573–1644)
© Sebastiaan Ostkamp
to 1650, that saucer-dishes of this exact form with the fishing net pattern on both between the end of the Ming and the rise of the Qing
the interior and exterior were recovered from the Hatcher junk (c.1643), and that dynasty, conducting astronomical, geographical
441
and topographical observations. In 1651, Martini
one appears depicted turned upside-down alongside a Kraak klapmuts in a still life returned back to Europe via the Philippines and
Batavia (present-day Jakarta), where he was taken
painting by the Amsterdam artist Jan Janz Treck (1605/6–1652), dated 1645, proves prisoner for one year by the Dutch. He then travelled
that this type of saucer-dish was imported into the Dutch Republic in the early 1640s to Bergen in Norway, to Hamburg in Germany and
finally to Amsterdam in the Dutch Republic, where
(Fig. 3.2.1.21). he published his Novus Atlas Sinensis. The atlas
442
included 15 maps of provinces that formed the
Porcelain, as has been shown in the previous pages, made frequent appearance on Chinese Empire at the time Martini lived there. It
the laid tables depicted in still life paintings of various artists of the Dutch Republic was first published as the sixth volume of Theatrum
Orbis Terrarium by the Dutchman Johan Blaeuw. A
in the early seventeenth century. 443 A closer examination of these paintings reveals a detail showing the Guanyin is published in Donnelly,
pp. 134–135; John Ayers, ‘Blanc-de-Chine: Some
variety of porcelain shapes mainly brought to the Dutch Republic as cargoes of the Reflections’, Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic
VOC, all depicted in great detail together with other imported and/or local objects. Society, Vol. 51, 1986–1987, p. 29, fig. 17; Kerr and
Ayers, et. al., 2002, p. 29, fig. 17; and Canepa, 2012/3,
The artists’ careful observation and rendering of the various pieces of porcelain and p. 3, fig. 3.
438 For an example in the Virginia Museum of Fine
their painted decorative motifs undoubtedly denotes the great appreciation that Arts in Richmond, Bequest of Forrest R. Brauer
(85. 1502), see Ayers, 2002 p. 99, no. 50.
porcelain had in the Dutch Republic at the time. The majority of pieces depicted 439 Sheaf and Kilburn, 1988, p. 73, pl. 113 and Apendix A.
seem to be Kraak porcelain, thus confirming the information provided by the VOC 440 Published in Ostkamp, 2014, pp. 75–76, fig. 28. A
blue-and-white wine cup with a similar fishing net
documents as well as marine and land archaeological finds discussed above. pattern on the exterior and a single fish on the centre
By the early 1610s, porcelain appears to have been already incorporated in the interior is found in the Sir Percival David Collection
now housed at the British Museum in London.
daily life of middle class residents. The historian Johannes Isaäcs Pontanus (1571– Published in Stacey Pierson, Illustrated Catalogue
of Underglaze Blue and Copper red Decorated
1639) in his book describing Amsterdam and its history, published in Latin in 1611 Porcelains in the Percival David Foundation of
Chinese Art, London, 2004, p. 103, no. C615.
and in Dutch in 1614, notes that ‘the East India traffic has brought a large amount of 441 Two of these saucer-dishes, one of them shown
porcelain to the Netherlands … that is why one must conclude about the porcelains, upside down, are published in Sheaf and Kilburn,
1988, p. 45, pl. 55. In April 1643, the VOC placed
the abundance of which grows daily, that only because of these navigations they come an order of porcelain with the Chinese merchant
196 Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer
Fig. 3.2.1.21 Still life with a pewter
pitcher and a Chinese bowl
Oil on oak, 66.5cm x 50.5cm
Jan Janz Treck (1605/6–1652), dated 1645
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (inv. no. 1064)
to be with us in nearly daily use with the common people’. 444 A few group portrait
paintings indicate that porcelain was used as tableware in middle-class households by
the late 1620s. These include a painting entitled Family in Prayer before Mealtime by
an unknown artist, dated 1627, which depicts a Kraak cup, of the type known as ‘crow
cup’, with a simplified version of its panelled decoration containing berries alongside
traditional pewter tableware with bread or a large cooked fowl (Fig. 3.2.1.22). 445
This ‘crow cup’, probably dating to the Wanli or Tianqi reigns, is similar to extant
examples, such as the one in the Princessehof Museum in Leeuwarden (Fig. 3.2.1.23).
A painting entitled Merry Company by the Haarlem artist Isack Elyas, dated 1629,
alludes to the Five Senses depicting a group of well-dressed people enjoying food,
drink and music seated around a table with pewter plates, a salt, and a jug, together
with a Kraak plate with a panelled rim border that is also being used to serve berries
(Fig. 3.2.1.24). 446 A few other similar examples, as noted by Spriggs and Berger
Hochstrasser, are known.
447
Tecklim for a total of 146,000 pieces, including 5,000 In the Dutch Republic, porcelain not only had a practical function, but also
small ‘net’ dishes. Cited in Ibid., Appendix B, p. 169.
442 Published in N.R.A Vroom, De schilders van ornamental. As recently noted by Bischoff, documentary evidence shows that formal
het monochrome banketje, N.V. Uitgevers-Mij arrangements of porcelain were adopted for interior decoration in the Dutch Republic
“Kosmos”, Amsterdam, 1945, p. 163, no. 143.
443 For a comprehensive study on the porcelain depicted by the early decades of the seventeenth century. Female members of the House of
in Dutch paintings, see Berger Hochstrasser, 2007.
444 Cited in Volker, 1954, p. 23; and Berger Hochstrasser, Orange not only collected large quantities of porcelain, but also had separate rooms
2007, p. 133.
445 Published in Van der Pijl-Ketel, 1982, p. 35; and or cabinets in their palaces specially created to display pieces of porcelain arranged
Berger Hochstrasser, 2007, pp. 128 and 130, fig. 64. in groups. For instance, Louise de Coligny (1555–1620), fourth and last wife of
446 Published in Van der Pijl-Ketel, 1982, p. 35.
447 Spriggs, 1964–1966; and Berger Hochstrasser, 2007. Stadtholder William I of Orange, had 285 pieces of porcelain in one room at the
Trade in Chinese Porcelain 197