Page 229 - Chinese and japanese porcelain silk and lacquer Canepa

Porcelain trade to
the New World [3.3]
Trade to the Spanish Colonies [3.3.1]
The Spanish, through their trans-Pacific trade route established after discovering a
feasable eastward route to Acapulco in 1565, appear to have been the first Europeans
to import porcelain into the New World. By the time large quantities of porcelain
began to be imported into Acapulco in the early 1570s, the colonial society, with the
exception of the high military officials, the clergy and the viceregal administration, was
accustomed to use in the household a wide variety of pottery objects imported from
Seville that were not very sophisticated and corresponded with Iberian customs. These
were functional for use in the kitchen as containers or cooking utensils, in the dining
table as dinner sets and in the private rooms for personal higiene, though a few were
ornamental. In contrast to findings in Spain, the Spanish written sources and the
603
porcelain recovered from archaeological excavations at colonial sites in the New World
discussed in the following pages will reveal that by the late sixteenth century porcelain
had made its way into nearly every level of the multi-ethnic colonial society of both
the viceroyalty of New Spain and Peru.
Although the trade to the Portuguese colonies in the New World was consciously
left out of this study because of the scantity of documentary and archaeological
evidence, it is important to note that a few fragments of blue-and-white porcelain
dating to the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century have been excavated
603 For more information on the pottery objects
at Salvador da Bahia, the capital of the Portuguese colony, and at Pernambuco, in imported into New Spain from Europe in the
present-day Brazil. Excavations at the Praça da Sé in Salvador de Bahia, eapecially at
Cerámica Exportada a América en el Siglo XVI a
the remains of a church, brought to light 73 shards of blue-and-white porcelain dating
Indias (II). Ajuares Domésticos y Cerámica Cultural y
to the reigns of Jiajing and Wanli. More than half of them formed part of pieces of Laboral’, Laboratorio de Arte, 11 (1998), pp. 121–133.
228 Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer
Kraak porcelain. The Pernambuco finds include fragments of two Kraak porcelain
604
dishes with panelled rim borders. Future research will undoubtedly provide valuable
605
information regarding the types and quantities of porcelain brought by the Portuguese
via the Atlantic to their colonies in the New World.
Viceroyalty of New Spain [3.3.1.1]
The viceroyalty of New Spain, positioned at the crossroads of both trans-Pacific and
trans-Atlantic trade routes, facilitated the exchange and circulation of large quantities
of silk, porcelain and other Chinese goods in the Spanish colonies of the New World,
and as we saw earlier, also to Spain. After silk, as shown in Chapter II, porcelain was
the second most important trade good imported into New Spain in the late sixteenth
and early seventeenth centuries. Porcelain appears regularly listed in the registers of
606
Fig. 3.3.1.1.1 Sketch-drawing of a Zhangzhou the ships that traversed the Pacific annually from Cebú, and after 1571 from Manila,
blue-and-white dish from the shipwreck San
607
Felipe (1576) to Acapulco between 1565 and 1576. Porcelain, as well as other Asian goods, usually
© Edward von der Porten appears registered as private consignments, under the name of the person who either
ordered or consigned the cargo, and not as a trade good. Many Spanish colonial
608
604 Carlos Etchevarne and João Pedro Gomes, merchants or private individuals, both male and female, are named. There are also a
‘Porcelana Chinesa em Salvador da Bahia (Seculos
XVI a XVIII)’, in Teixeira and Bettencourt, 2012, pp. number of Portuguese merchants, some of them wealthy New Christians, mentioned
933–935. Unfortunately, the images of the porcelain as owners of cargoes that included porcelain. An early example is that of the Espíritu
excavated have been lost. The archaeologists
intend to photograph the porcelain material in the Santo, which left Cebú in 1570 with a cargo of ‘… porcelains, porcelain jars with less
near future.
605 The shard is housed at the Universidade Federal de value, silk, mantas from Luzon, twelve packages of porcelain, six pieces of porcelain,
Pernambuco, inv. nos. LA/UFPE – Reg. 4797/4858 – 300 large pieces of porcelain, jars, and twenty other mantas from Luzon’ brought
15 and LA/UFPE – Reg. 3366–1490. See porcelain
section at http://www.brasilarqueologico.com.br. by the Portuguese Jiménez Barbero; and with ‘700 pieces of porcelain’ brought by
Accessed February 2015.
606 Gasch-Tomás, 2014, p. 162. another Portuguese, named Felipe. Two years later, in 1572, the Santiago left
609
607 AGI, Contaduría, Caja de Filipinas, 943–956. Manila with ‘400 pieces of porcelain’, which belonged to a merchant named Julian
Mentioned in Miyata Rodríguez, 2009, p. 42.
608 Carmen Yuste López, El comercio de la Nueva de Arbolancha. By the following year, the amount of porcelain shipped to the New
610
España con Filipinas, 1590–1785, Mexico City, 1984,
p. 26. World had increased exponentially. That year, as mentioned earlier, two galleons
609 Mentioned in Miyata Rodríguez, 2009, p. 42. carried 22,300 pieces of ‘fine gilt china, and other porcelain ware’ to Acapulco. This
611
610 Mentioned in Ibid.; and Canepa, 2014/1, p. 252,
note 61. suggests that early trade cargoes of the Manila Galleons not only included porcelain of
611 Cited in Schurz, 1959, p. 27; and Canepa, 2014/1,
p. 25. differing quality, but also that it may have originated from multiple production centers
612 The San Felipe, a large galleon built in Acapulco and workshops in China.
in 1573, sailed from Manila without escort in 1576.
Sailing north after leaving the San Bernardino Strait An indication of the diverse variety and provenance of the porcelain imported
between Luzon and Samar she was lost without
trace. She had struck a sandy shoal nearly half a into New Spain around this time is provided by the shards found thus far on the
kilometer offshore, while sailing along the coast coast of Baja California, where one of the earliest eastbound Manila Galleons, the
towards her final destination, the port of Acapulco.
The San Felipe subsequently got hit by a severe San Felipe, wrecked in 1576. The cargo included a full range of fine, intermediate
612
storm that torn the ship apart. The ship’s wreckage
and its shattered porcelain cargo spread across the and coarse porcelain (Appendix 3). In addition to shards of variously decorated
613
beaches of Baja California, present-day Mexico, for Jingdezhen blue-and-white bowls, plates, cups, bottles and jars; and bowls, plates
many kilometers. I am greatly indebted to Edward
von der Porten for providing me with research and cups decorated with overglaze enamels (some with lids); the finds include shards
material of this shipwreck. For more information, see
Von der Porten, 2011, pp. 7–9. Mentioned in Canepa, of a monochrome white-glazed jar and a few Zhangzhou blue-and-white dishes
2014/2, p. 105.
613 Porcelain shards were found during eleven joined both of small and large size as well as shards of a large jar, all decorated with broad
Mexico-United States archaeological expeditions to brushstrokes of cobalt blue without outline (Fig. 3.3.1.1.1). About 27 percent of the
614
the wreck site, which took place from 1999 to 2012.
A further expedition was carried out in October cargo recovered consists of plates with a phoenix in profile within a border of peach
2014. The site also yielded 352 shards of stoneware, sprays and auspicious symbols, like those discussed earlier. It included only two finely
but these are out of the scope of this study. For a
general discussion, photos and sketch-drawings potted Kraak plates with a white cavetto and continuous naturalistic rim border and
of the porcelain finds, see Edward von der Porten,
‘The Manila Galleon San Felipe, 1573–1576’, Mains’l a bowl with panels divided by single or double lines, as well as a few plates and bowls
sixteenth century, see José María Sánchez, ‘La Haul, vol. 46, 1 & 2, Winter/Spring 2010; and Von with overglaze red medallions originally decorated with gold, and thus of Kinrande
der Porten, 2011, pp. 16-70. For a further discussion
Través de la Documentación del archive General de on the Kraak finds, see Rinaldi, 2003, pp. 32–33; type. The earliest documentary reference to the Spanish encountering gilded and
615
Canepa, 2008–2009, p. 64; Canepa, 2012/1, p. 265;
and Canepa, 2014/1, p. 25. fine porcelain in the Philippines is found in the anonymous account Relation of the
Trade in Chinese Porcelain 229