Page 223 - Chinese and japanese porcelain silk and lacquer Canepa

Fig. 3.2.2.22 Fragment of a Kraak saucer dish
Fig. 3.2.2.21 Fragment of a Kraak plate
excavated at 38 North Street, Exeter
Jingdezhen kilns, Jiangxi province
Ming dynasty, Wanli reign (1573–1620)
Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter
(museum no. 300/1988/2269)
Mayor of Exeter, lists among his possessions ‘One Carricke Goblett with a foote of his young nephew Edward VI, and thus effectively
silver gilte’ valued at 26s 8d; ‘One other Carricke Goblett with a silver foote’ valued ruler of England. His eldest surviving son by his
first marriage, Edward, Lord Seymour (1529–1593),
at £1. This mention of the term ‘Carricke’ further illustrates the common use of built an Elizabethan courtyard house within the
597
medieval castle walls. The information regarding
the term. Berry Pomeroy Castle is taken from the ‘History
Richard Carew in his Survey of Cornwall, first published in 1602, wrote in a of Berry Pomeroy Castle’ in the English Heritage
website www.english-heritage.org.uk, accessed on
reference to the town of Saltash that ‘Here that great carrack which Sir Francis Drake November 17 2014; and Brown, 1996, pp. 1, 10–9.
590 D. M. Griffiths and F. M. Griffith, ‘An Excavation at
surprised in her return from the East Indies unloaded her freight, and through a 39 Fore Street, Totnes’, in John Allan (ed.), Devon
negligent firing met with an improper ending’. When Drake seized the San Felipe Archaeological Society, No. 42, Torquay, 1984, p. 84,
598
fig. 2, no. 1.
off the Azores in 1587, this Portuguese carrack was carrying a double cargo as she 591 I am grateful to John Allan and Val Maxfield, Exeter
University, for providing me with images of some
had taken aboard the goods of the San Lorenzo. The ship, carrying great quantities of the porcelain excavated in Devon for research
of pepper, calico, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, jewels, gold and silver, as well as silk purposes. I am indebted to Thomas Cadbury,
curator of Antiquities at the Royal Albert Memorial
and porcelain from China, was taken in June of that year to Plymouth. Thus it Museum in Exeter, for granting me permission
599
to illustrate some of the porcelain finds from 38
is likely that the nobility and wealthy merchants of Devon acquired at least some of North Street and Trinchay Street in this doctoral
dissertation, which are now housed at the RAAM.
the porcelain and other imported luxury goods discussed above from the booty of the 592 Allan, 1984, p. 106. Cited in Jacqueline Pearce and
San Felipe. Jean Martin, ‘Oriental Blue and White Porcelain
Found at Archaeological Excavations in London:
Extant bills of lading of EIC ships bound for London prior to 1650 show that the Research in Progress’, Transactions of the Oriental
Ceramic Society, Vol. 67, 2002–2003, p. 102.
EIC sometimes acquired porcelain and other Chinese goods from the Portuguese in 593 Allan, 1984, p. 106. Mentioned in Pearce and Martin,
Macao. Two EIC ships that departed from Macao list porcelain among their cargoes: 2002–2003, p. 102.
594 Allan , 1984, p. 106. I am greatly indebted to John Allan
the James in 1615 and the Catherine in 1637. 600 The Hinde arrived to Macao in August and Todd Gray for providing me with digital images
of 1644, but this English trading venture proved unfruitful as the city was ‘destitute of extracts from the original ECA Orphans Court
inventories of Thomas Baskerville (1596) and John
of all sorts of commodities; there not being to be bought in the City, either Silks Anthonye (1598) as well as a transcription of them.
I am grateful to Stuart Tyler, Devon Archives and
raw or wrought, or Chinaroot … nor indeed anything but Chinaware, which is the Local Studies Service, for granting me permission
222 Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer
excavated at 38 North Street, Exeter
Jingdezhen kilns, Jiangxi province
Ming dynasty, Wanli/Tianqi reign (1573–1627)
Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter
(museum no. 300/1988/2272)
Fig. 3.2.2.23 Fragment of a blue-and-white
saucer dish excavated at Trichay Street, Exeter
Jingdezhen kilns, Jiangxi province
Ming dynasty, Tianqi/Chongzhen reign
(1621–1644)
Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter
(museum no. 300/1988/2100)
bulk of the Hinde’s lading, the rest being brought in gold’. This clearly reflects the
601
difficulties experienced by the Portuguese and other Europeans to trade with Chinese
to include images of these inventories in this merchants at that time, when Ming China had fallen to the Manchus, who proclaimed
doctoral dissertation.
595 E. A. Donaldson, ‘Inventory of the goods and the Qing dynasty. Trade in porcelain was only restored in about 1680, during the reign
chattels of Richard Bevys, late Mayor of Exeter. of the second Qing emperor, Kangxi (1662–1722). The English, unlike the Portuguese,
1603’, Trans. Devonshire Association 41, 1909, pp.
215–240. Cited in Allan, 1984, pp. 107–108. Spanish or Dutch, were going to import thousands of Blanc de chine pieces in the late
596 This interpretation was put forward by Barbara
Harrison in the early 1980s, and has continued to seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Blanc de chine figure and animal models
602
be cited by many scholars from then on. Barbara came to be greatly admired and collected, along with other Chinese and Japanese
Harrison, ‘Kraak Porcelains’, Oriental Ceramic
Society of Hong Kong, Bulletin Number Five, Hong porcelain, in a number of English royal palaces and country houses.
Kong, 1980–1982, p. 29.
597 Cited in Allan, 1984, p. 107. From the information provided by textual sources, archaeological excavations
598 F. E. Halliday (ed.), Richard Carew of Anthony, The and extant pieces discussed above it is possible to conclude that a small amount of
Survey of Cornwall, London, New edition, 1969,
p. 182. porcelain arrived in Tudor England through indirect routes before the establishment
599 John Sugden, Sir Francis Drake, London, 2006,
pp. 215–216. of the EIC in 1600. These earliest recorded pieces, owned by King Henry III and the
600 Mentioned in Curtis, 1998, p. 28. Archbishop of Canterbury, were described as porcelain but were made of celadon-
601 Cited in H. B. Morse, Britain and the China Trade
1635–1842, Vol. I, London and New York, reprint glazed stoneware. By the 1570s, a small number of pieces of porcelain were owned by
2000, p. 32.
602 Shipping and sale records of the EIC show that Queen Elizabeth I, some of which she received as gifts. A few extant pieces known as
the trade to England consisted mostly of Blanc de having arrived in Tudor England in the second half of the sixteenth century serve to
chine figure and animal models. This period of the
English trade in porcelain is out of the scope of illustrate the high appreciation that porcelain had in England at the time, as they are
the present study. For a detailed account on the
EIC trade of Blanc de chine porcelain to England fitted with elaborate silver-gilt mounts made by renowned English silversmiths. These
in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, mounts sometimes transformed the porcelain piece into a different type of object. These
see Geoffrey A. Godden, Oriental Export Market
Porcelain and its Influence on European Wares, mounted pieces of porcelain were regarded as suitable for royal or diplomatic gifts, as
London, 1979, pp. 257–280; and Canepa, December
2012/3, pp. 3–6. well as for furnishing the interiors of royal palaces and aristocratic houses. Although
Trade in Chinese Porcelain 223