Page 228 - Chinese and japanese porcelain silk and lacquer Canepa

porcelain was still rare at the time, it seems that was available to those who could inventory of an apothecary from Exeter taken in 1596 has provided the earliest written
afford it. It is possible that some of the porcelain arrived in England via the Near East, reference known thus far of the use of the term ‘Carracke’ to refer to dishes, which
where English merchants traded in Ottoman Turkey. Extant pieces of porcelain with were in all probability made of Kraak porcelain. Another inventory taken two years
late sixteenth century English mounts demonstrate that the majority of the porcelain later, in 1598, mentions again ‘carricke dishes’ and thus proves that it was a common
imported into Tudor England at the time was blue-and-white from Jingdezhen. It term used in northern Europe, in England as early as the last decade of the sixteenth
included ordinary trade porcelain made after Islamic shapes as well as Kraak porcelain century, and in the Dutch Republic as early as the third decade of the seventeenth
of various types, dating to the Wanli reign. Porcelain with gilded decorations, perhaps century. Furthermore, this proves that the Dutch term kraken does not derive from a
of the Kinrande type, was also imported. Some pieces are comparable to finds from type of wall-shelf used for displaying blue-and-white porcelain in Friesland.
the Spanish sipwrecks, the San Felipe (1576) and San Diego (1600). By the turn of
the century pieces of porcelain were still being acquired as valuable curiosities. Several
prominent men are known to have collected porcelain and other exotic objects in
London to be displayed for a selected audience, following the continental fashion of
the cabinets of curiosity. These objects would have reinforced the social standing of the
collector and well as to conferred honour to the collector and visitor.
After the establishment of the EIC in 1600, porcelain continued to be imported
as private trade. The EIC, as the Portuguese and Spanish royal courts and the VOC
had done earlier, sent porcelain as diplomatic gifts. It is known that ships from the
EIC acquired porcelain and other Chinese goods from the Portuguese in Macao at
least twice, in 1615 and 1637. Textual sources have shown that porcelain remained for
a few decades the privilege of the royalty, nobility and rich merchant class, but then it
gradually became more widely available to different socio-economic groups. As early
as 1605, a considerable quantity of porcelain was displayed alongside other imported
objects in a separate architectural space at Wardour Castle, following a fashion that
appears to have begun in Portugal in the early 1560s. Porcelain fitted with mounts
was also kept in cupboards or displayed in shelves. In England, as it occurred in Spain,
porcelain had a much higher monetary value only if fitted with mounts. We have
learned from English literary works that porcelain and other exotic goods from China
were sold at the New Exchange when it opened in London in 1609, that there were
other merchants that also sold porcelain in London, and that some of the porcelain
that arrived in England at this time was acquired via the Dutch Republic. By the late
1620s, porcelain was not only regarded as a valuable curiosity worth of displaying, but
also as a functional object for use as tableware and thus had a lower monetary value.
It appears that some of the porcelain made to order for the Dutch market began
to reach England in the late 1630s. The presence of Blanc de chine porcelain, including
Buddhist Lion incense stick holders, is documented as early as 1641. While the animal
and figure models clearly served as ornamental pieces, there were also a few pieces with
practical functions, such as dishes and flowerpots. By this time, female members of the
nobility had built rooms to display large quantities of porcelain and other imported
objects in shelves, over the mantle, and on top of furniture, most probably following
the formal arrangements adopted earlier in the Dutch Republic.
Material from archaeological excavations has shown that a small quantity of both
Kraak porcelain from Jingdezhen and Zhangzhou porcelain, of varying quality, were
available in London in the early decades of the seventeenth century. Small quantities
of porcelain also circulated to towns in the South West of England, particularly
to Plymouth, Devon and Exeter. Most of the porcelain was blue-and-white of the
ordinary trade or Kraak types, but there was also a small amount of Kinrande porcelain.
Some of the porcelain appears to have been acquired as booty from Portuguese and
Spanish ships, or taken from Spanish shipwrecks that sank off the coast of Ireland. An

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