Page 218 - Chinese and japanese porcelain silk and lacquer Canepa

Dorchester discussed in Chapter II, lists ‘2 creame bowles of chyna garnish with silver’, Kraak too, such as the ‘two little long necke bottells of Purselin’. Only a few pieces
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valued at 40 pounds; and ‘All the china dishes, glasses & bottles taken out of the closett’ appear to have been decorated with overglaze enamels, including the ‘Saeuen very
at Gosfield Hall in Essex, valued at 3 pounds. ‘In the great barrd trunck’, together large Jarres with Coeurs of Purselin’. Even pieces intended for personal hygiene or
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with the 5 white pieces of Chinese damask, are listed ‘5 drawers full of Cheney dishes use at that dinner table were displayed on shelves, like the ‘foure Chamberpotts of
and glass plates, 3 inckhornes and divers other small necessary things, a dozen of tortus Purselyne, and thereon three Purselin dishes’, ‘two little Mustard Purselin Potts & two
shell dishes with the barrd trunck’, with a value of 6 pounds. The aforementioned little Deepe Porringers with Eares’, and ‘two saltsellors of Purselin’. The fact that not
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inventories demonstrate that by this time porcelain had a much higher monetary value a single piece of porcelain from the ‘Dutch Pranketing Room’ remains extant, and that
only if fitted with mounts, and that more ordinary porcelain used as tableware was the 1641 inventory does not specify their decoration, makes it very difficult to identify
thus given a lower value. The same occurred in continental Europe, as discussed earlier, with certainty the pieces listed.
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especially in Spain. It is clear that the monetary value of mounted porcelain had fallen Alatheia Talbot, Countess of Arundel (c.1582–1654), a prominent patron and art
considerably, if one compares the 7 parcels of porcelain cups valued at 12 pounds in collector at the court of James I and then of King Charles I (r. 1625–1649), built this
the 1614 inventory of the Earl of Northampton to that of a single bowl worth only room to both entertain and display her collection of 496 pieces of porcelain alongside
45 shillings in the aforementioned Countess of Leicester’s inventory drawn up twenty other imported objects on shelves around the room, over the mantle, and on top of
years later, in 1634. It appears that as early as the late 1630s, porcelain made to order furniture. The Countess of Arundel, as convincingly argued by Claxton, may have
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for the VOC after European models began to reach England. A letter written by Lady purchased porcelain in the Dutch Republic when she stopped there on her homeward
Brilliana Harley to her son in 1638, states that ‘I haue sent a token to Mrs. Wilkinson: journey from Italy to visit her friend Princess Elizabeth, later Elizabeth of Bohemia,
… It is two cruets of china, with siluer and gilt couers, and bars and feete. Do not let who was then in exile in The Hague. Moreover, it is likely that the Countess of
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the boxe be opened before she has it’. According to Glanville and Pierson the pieces Arundel viewed the formal porcelain arrangements that had been adopted for interior
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described as ‘cruets of chinna’ referred to sugar casters. If so, they might have been decoration in the Dutch Republic by the early seventeenth century. As an important
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like the type of Kraak porcelain spice box of cylindrical form with a domed cover visitor, she would have been entertained by the Stadholder or his wife at Noordeinde
perforated with small holes and bud finial made to order for the Dutch market in the Palace in The Hague, and would thus have viewed the displays of porcelain created
Chongzhen reign, discussed in section 3.4.2.1 of this Chapter (Fig. 3.4.2.1.5). by Louise de Coligny and Catharine Belgica, discussed earlier. The collecting and
The earliest documentary evidence of the presence of Blanc de chine porcelain formal display of large quantities of porcelain by these female members of the House
from the kilns of Dehua (Appendix 2) in England is found in an inventory taken in of Orange probably inspired the Countess of Arundel to create the ‘Dutch Pranketing
1641 of the contents of Tart Hall, the London residence of the art collector Thomas Room’ on her return to England. This is one of the most notable examples of an
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Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel (1585–1646). Among the contents of a room known English porcelain collection assembled and formally displayed prior to 1688, when
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as ‘The Dutch Pranketing Room’, located in the grounds of Tart Hall, are listed sixty- Queen Mary II (r. 1688-1694) had her apartments at Kensington Palace and Hampton
nine models of white porcelain, including ‘a white Figure of a Man and a Boy in Court decorated with a large number of porcelain pieces. For instance, only 65
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Purselin’, ‘A white Purselin Eure’, ‘the Figure of a lyon on a Pedistall of white Purselin’, pieces of ‘purselaine’ are listed in an inventory taken in 1649 of Charles I’s belongings
543 Claxton, 2010, Appendix, p. 12.
‘Figure of a woeman sitting of white Purselin’ and ‘A figure of a woeman of white 544 bid., Appendix, p. 24. at Somerset House, which were probably displayed on the ‘Nyne Woodden hanging
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Purselin’. A total of 8 animal models of ‘lyon on a Pedistall’ are listed, which were 545 bid., Appendix, p. 8, 11 and 12, repectively. Shellves turned and guilt’ listed immediately before the porcelain. 551
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546 bid., p. 192.
in all probability similar to the example recovered from the Spanish shipwreck Nuestra 534 Steer, 1953, p. 96. 547 bid., pp. 187, 188 and 192. Various Chinese items are listed in the catalogue of the rarities collected by John
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535 bid., pp. 155-156. Cited in Glanville, 2007–2008, 548 Mentioned in Fock, 1997, p. 80; and Claxton, 2010,
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Señora de la Limpia y Pura Concepción which sank that same year (Fig. 3.1.2.22), and p. 71. p. 189. Tradescant the elder (d. 1638) in his London residence at Lambeth, which came to be
536 Thomas Taylor Lewis, Letters of the Lady Brilliana 549 bid., p. 190.
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that listed as a ‘white lion’ in the 1637 inventory of the belongings of the Dutch painter Harley, London, 1854, p. 15. 550 For a brief discussion on this subject, see Anna known as the ‘Ark’. The catalogue, published by his son John Tradescant in 1656,
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Jan Blasse. It is clear from the recurrent use of the phrase ‘for ornament’ when listing 537 Philippa Glanville and Hilary Young (eds.), Elegant Somers Cocks, ‘The non-functional use of ceramics lists all the rarities contributed by over 100 donors, including courtiers, office holders,
Eating: Four hundred years of dining in style, in the English Country-house during the eighteenth
the aforementioned pieces in the inventory that the Blanc de chine figure and animal London, 2002, p. 60; and Pierson, 2007, p. 32, century’, in Gervase Jackson-Stops, et. al. (eds.), The merchants, diplomats and sea captains. Among the ‘Artificialls’ are included Chinese
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note 83. Fashioning and Functioning of the British Country
models served as ornamental pieces. But there were also a few Blanc de chine functional 538 Alatheia Talbot, Countess of Arundel, commissioned House, Studies in the History of Art, 25, Washington, items such as ‘Birds nests from China’, ‘China Armour’, ‘Sandals of wood, from China’,
pieces listed as ‘2 white Purselin dishes’ and 2 ‘white Purselin Flower pott’. In the inventory when she left England that year, in D.C., 1989, pp. 195–196. ‘Tobacco-pipes, 30 forts … from China’ and others. In section X, listing the ‘Utensils’,
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1641. Arundel Castle Archives, IN 1, ‘An Inventory of 551 Cited in Impey, 1990, p. 57; and Fock, 1997, p. 81.
addition, various pieces of both open and closed forms are listed in the inventory. These all the Parcells or Purselin, glasses and other Goods Mentioned in Claxton, 2010, p. 195, note 12. are also included ‘China ware, purple and green’, which referred to a stoneware jar
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now remaining in the Pranketing Roome at tart hall, 552 Levy Peck, 2005, p. 158.
include ‘a very Deepe large Purselin Bason’, ‘six square salt of Purselin’, ‘a Purselin Pott the 8 Sept 1641’. The original manuscript is kept in 553 John Tradescant, Musaeum Tradescantianum: or, A with green and purple glaze, now known as the ‘Tradescant jar’ in the Ashmolean
narrow on the Top’, ‘two greate flower potts of Purselyne’, ‘a Flagon & 2 Flower potts the archives of Arundel Castle. The main inventory Collection of rarities Preserved At South-Lambeth Museum in Oxford; as well as a ‘Variety of China dishes’. An extant blue-and-white
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of Tart Hall is kept in the British Library. For more neeer London, printed by John Grismold, and are
of Purselin’, ‘two Jarres of Purselin’, and ‘two greate Purseland Dishes and three little information and a transcription of the inventory by to be sold by Nathanael Brooke, London, 1656. A jar decorated round the body with Buddhist Lions among peony scrolls with a woven
kind permission of His Grace, the Duke of Norfolk, copy of this publication can be found in the Folger
Purslynd Dishes’. Pieces were arranged in groups for display, such as the ‘fifteene see Claxton, 2010, pp. 187–196 and Appendix, Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., No. cane casing from the Tradescant collection was listed in 1685 as no. 687: ‘Duae ollae
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square bottles of Purselin : At the Ends of them two little Carued Purselin Dishes & a pp. 3–33. 154794. Levy Peck, 2005, pp. 157–158. chinenses, quarum una vidris est coloris, ramis aurei coloris notate: altera alba caeruleo
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539 bid., p. 192 and Appendix, pp. 11, 12 and 14. Cited in 554 Tradescant, 1656, p. 52. A digital copy in the Thomas
little Couered dish standing in one of them & 14 little Purselin Cuppes without Feete, Canepa, 2012/3, p. 5. Fisher Rare Book Library (No. 6957189), University colore perbelle picta’ (Fig. 3.2.2.15).
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540 Claxton, 2010, Appendix, pp. 11, 15 and 18, of Toronto, was accessed for this research study in
between Euery two bottles one’, all placed on a little shelf over the mantle. The respectively. November 2014. References to China, and specifically to porcelain, can also be found in English
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square bottles were most probably Kraak porcelain, of similar shape to those recovered 541 bid., Appendix, pp. 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 13 and 555 Tradescant, 1656, p. 53. literary works published in the seventeenth century, during the early years of the reign
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22, repectively. 556 Published in MacGregor, 1983, p. 182 and pl. LIV,
from the Wanli shipwreck (c.1625) discussed earlier. Many other pieces may have been 542 Ibid., Appendix, p. 7. No. 77. of James I. One reference is found in William Shakespeare’s play, Measure for Measure,
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