Page 283 - Chinese and japanese porcelain silk and lacquer Canepa

significance as Christian motifs. It is widely accepted that these jars were made for 898 Rinaldi, 1989, pp. 118–119. For more information, see Stemm, Gerth, Flow,
899 These armorial bottles, believed to have been
use in religious services. Presumably, as Krahl and Harrison-Hall suggest, these jars commissioned by Álvaro de Vilas-Boas, were
discussed by the author elsewhere. See, Vinhais and
were commissioned for Portuguese Jesuits. The controlled naturalism and sculptural Welsh, 2008/2, pp. 160–167; Canepa, 2008–2009,
923
qualities of both the moulded handle of the ewers and the winged cherubs of the jars pp. 71–72, fig. 8, Canepa, 2012/1, p. 272. Also see
Pinto de Matos, 2011, pp. 166–169, no. 66.
discussed above were completely consistent with European Renaissance taste. 900 Archaeological finds indicate that green moulded
glass bottles of square section were produced in
As the preceding porcelains indicate, virtually all the new shapes made after Germany as early as 1570–1580. Such bottles, made
European models were manufactured in ordinary trade porcelain or in Kraak porcelain in various sizes, became widely used in the Northern
Netherlands at the end of the sixteenth century. For
at the private kilns of Jingdezhen (Appendix 2). Two European shapes, however, are further information, see Robert H. McNulty, Dutch
Glass Bottles of the 17th and 18th Centuries. A
known in the thickly potted and relatively coarse porcelain made at the Zhangzhou Collectors Guide, Bethesda, 2004, pp. 19–23; and
kilns. They prove that the Zhangzhou potters adapted their porcelain production to Kuwayama, 1997, p. 38, fig. 14. Square-sectioned
bottles were also made in stoneware and faience.
suit the requirements of their European clients in order to both profit from these 901 A few fragments were found among the fifteenth/
sixteenth century glass assemblage excavated
special orders and compete with the potters from Jingdezhen. It is likely that these from pits and rubbish deposits at Rua da Judaria
shapes, both different from those ordered at Jingdezhen, were introduced by Iberian in the town of Almada, situated on the Tagus River,
opposite Lisbon. Published in Teresa Medici, ‘The
merchants (Portuguese or Spanish) at the end of the sixteenth century, namely a jar of glass finds from Rua da Judaria, Almada, Portugal
(12th–v19th century)’, Revista Portuguesa de
tall, waisted cylindrical shape and a flowerpot. Thus far the earliest examples are those Arqueología, vol. 8, no. 2, 2005, p. 548, cat. nos. 131
and 132.
recovered from the Spanish shipwreck San Diego (1600) (Fig. 3.4.1.2.12). The jars 902 Juan van der Hamen belonged to a wealthy,
924
copy faithfully the slender utilitarian drug jars made for the storing of medicinal herbs aristocratic family that descended from a line of
Flemish noble and military figures who served the
at majolica centres in Spain, Italy and France throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth Habsburg court for generations. He was a member
centuries, which in turn derived from Islamic tin-glazed containers (Fig. 3.4.1.2.13). of the Archer’s Guard, like his father and grandfather
925
had been, which had the honorary mission to
In Spain they were known as ‘Damascus bottles’ and in Italy as albarelli. The fact protect the monarch since the reign of Emperor
926
Charles V. Four years after Van der Hamen married
that the San Diego jars were found among the remains of the ship’s pharmacy indicates Eugenia Herrera, member of a family of painters and
that they were used for shipboard medicine, containing drugs to treat the crew during sculptors, he received his first commission from the
Madrid court. The compositions made throughout
the long trans-Pacific voyage originally planned, rather than for export to the New his short career incorporate sumptuous silver, glass
Venetian objects, glass square bottles and Kraak
World. It seems that the Zhangzhou potters imitated the scale and shape of the porcelain, which indicate the level of wealth and
927
prototype as close as possible, yet the blue-and-white decoration is entirely in their taste of those who owned these objects and at the
same time reflect the cosmopolitan atmosphere of
characteristic free and painterly style seen in other Zhangzhou porcelains of traditional the royal court he frequented. A glass square bottle,
perhaps the same depicted in the Still Life with
Chinese shapes. The flowerpot recovered from the San Diego, modelled with a tapering Sweets painting illustrated here, is again shown in
body and everted rim, is of unusually high quality. While the jars show a free and his works Serving Table of the early 1620s and Still
928
Life with Fruit and Glassware dated to 1629.
painterly floral decoration executed with broad brushstrokes, the flowerpot is finely 903 William B. Jordan, Spanish Still Life in the Golden
Age, 1600–1650, Forth Worth, 1985, p. 67, fig. II.3.
painted with long-tailed birds perched on peony branches in outline and wash. 904 Archaeologists believe that this shipwreck is the
Buen Jesús y Nuestra Señora del Rosario, a small
Portuguese-built and Spanish-operated ship.
They estimate that a minimum of 16 green glass
square bottles were aboard the ship. A number of
screw collars recovered from the Santa Margarita
Porcelain made to order for the Dutch market shipwreck indicate that bottles of this type were
also on this ship. These two shipwrecks, part of the
Tierra Firme fleet, sank in the Florida Keys while on
[3.4.2] their return voyage to Spain in 1622. Pewter screw
collars were also recovered from the San Martin, the
Almiranta of the Honduras fleet that sank en route
to Spain in 1618.
905 Corey Malcolm, ‘Glass from Nuestra Señora de
Atocha’, Astrolabe: Journal of the Mel Fisher
European Shapes [3.4.2.1] Maritime Heritage Society, Vol. 6, No. 1, Fall 1990,
figs. 2–4.
Unlike Portuguese and Spanish textual sources, Dutch sources provide ample evidence 906 Square glass bottles circulated to the New World.
of special orders of porcelain made for the Dutch market. The favorable conditions Large numbers of examples have been excavated
from early seventeenth century English sites,
for direct trade with China after the Dutch settled on Tayouan in 1624 provided the including the sites of Mathews Manor and the
VOC an opportunity to place annual orders for porcelain in European shapes or with Reverend Richard Buck, both in Virginia, and the
William Harwood, the Fort and the John Boyse
specific decorative motifs, for which models were given to Chinese merchants to be Homestead in Jamestown. Glass square bottles
have also been recovered from the Swedish warship
copied. As early as 1625, the VOC servants in Batavia supplied Tayouan with models Vasa, which sank in Stockholm 1628, and the VOC
929
to be copied by Chinese potters in Jingdezhen that may have been either porcelain shipwreck Vergulde Draeck, which sank off Western
Australia in 1656. Pewter and lead caps, associated
pieces from earlier shipments or European models. This porcelain, however, was not with the aforementioned bottles, have also been
found on VOC’s shipwrecks, including the Batavia
delivered. The earliest written evidence of porcelain made after European models (1629), Lastdrager (1653) and Vergulde Draeck (1656).
930
282 Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer
dates to ten years later. In July of 1635, the Hoge Regering in Batavia sent a letter
Guerrera-Librero and Kingsley, 2013, pp. 14-15.
907 A small number of extant Namban bottles of similar to Tayouan informing that ‘The snellen will be profitable considering the painting
shape, made in Japan during the Momoyama period
(1573–1615), will be discussed in section 4.1.2 of and because they are of a reasonable fashion, as will all other new and rare porcelains
Chapter IV.
908 For another example in the Historisch Museum like beermugs, bowls with ears, salt cellars, candlesticks, serving dishes and winejugs,
Palthehuis in Oldenzaal, see D.F. Lunsingh following the accompanying models’. From an answer sent from Tayouan to Batavia
931
Scheurleer, Chinese Export Porcelain-Chine de
Commande, London, 1974, pl. 121. The British the following September we learn that European models to be copied were specially
Museum example illustrated here is published in made in wood. It reads: ‘The merchants have given us the undertaking (having been
Harrison-Hall, 2001, pp. 280–281, nos. 11:11 and
11:12. Visual sources indicate that bottles of this type promised that we shall pay them for the fine wares almost as much again) to bring as a
came to be frequently used as flower containers
flanking a crucifix on altars of Christian churches sample very fine wares like large dishes and bowls and other assortments and in order
in New Spain in the early eighteenth century, as to get good fashions and to decorate the same with all kinds of Chinese paintings, I
evidenced in a still life painting by Pedro Calderón
in the Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico City. have had a turner and 2 or 3 painters working for more than 2 months to turn and
Published in Kuwayama, 2006, p. 173, fig. 16; and
Dona Leibsohn, ‘Made in China, Made in Mexico’, in paint jugs, wash-basins, cooling-tubs, dishes, mugs, salt cellars, mustard and waterpots,
Pierce and Otsuka, 2010, p. 33, fig. 11.
909 n the seventeenth century, glass square bottles also various cups of a good fashion, so that we trust that the next shipment will bring
I
of this type were carried in wooden cases for rare pieces, but they complain very much that of the extraordinary fine and large wares
protection. Each case usually held twelve bottles.
As early as 1656, they were called ‘bottle case’ or hardly an eight or a tenth part remains whole and straight during firing, so that large
‘case bottles’. For this opinion, see McNulty, 2004, pieces will be extraordinarily expensive’. Wooden models are again mentioned in
932
p. 22.
910 They are found in the British Museum (illustrated a letter sent by Governor Putnams to the Amsterdam Chamber, which states that he
here), the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, an
eighteenth century private house, now the Musée had given the Chinese merchants models of turned wood and painted will all kinds of
Orbigny-Bernon, La Rochelle, France and another is Chinese figures which they would get copied.
933
in a private collection in Brazil. For a discussion on
the symbolic meaning of the scenes and images of Extant pieces in public and private collections around the world provide material
these bottles, see Harrison-Hall, 2001, pp. 384–385,
no. 12:79; Pinto de Matos, 2001, p. 30, fig. 6; Jean- evidence of the various shapes modelled directly after European models made to order
Paul Desroches, Le Jardin des Porcelaines, Paris, in Jingdezhen for the Dutch market. These European shapes, made in both the old
1987, pp. 112–114, no. 30; and Pinto de Matos, 2011,
pp. 190–193, no. 74. Bottles of this shape were also but still popular Kraak porcelain and a new style of blue-and-white porcelain, the
decorated with Chinese narrative scenes framed
by similar borders of flowers and curling leaves. so-called Transtional, suggest that private individuals and VOC servants wanted to
An example of this latter type, fitted with late- replace silver or pewter objects used daily at the dinner table in the Dutch Republic
seventeenth century mounts, in the Ashmolean
Museum in Oxford is published in Ashmolean with identical ones but made in the much desired novel material, porcelain. However,
Museum, Eastern Ceramics and other works of art
from the collection of Gerald Reitlinger, catalogue their influence in the porcelain made to order for the Dutch market, as the Portuguese
of the memorial exhibition, Oxford, 1981, no. 45. and Spanish experienced earlier, was limited. Even when the Chinese potters made
An unmounted example is published in Viallé, 1992,
p. 12. shapes based or copied exactly from European models and created new decorative
911 McNulty, 2004, p. 19. David Teniers the Younger
moved to Brussels in 1651, where he was appointed designs incorporating European motifs in response to this new European demand, the
court painter and keeper of the art collections of the painted decoration was, with few exceptions, kept purely Chinese.
regent of the Southern Netherlands, the Habsburg
Archduke Leopold William of Austria (r. 1646–1656), Only a few Kraak porcelain pieces modelled directly after European models
cousin of Philip II of Spain.
912 This particular use is shown in the painting Easy have been recorded so far. These include five standing salts, a small covered spice
come, easy go by Jan Steen (c.1626–1679), dated box or sugar caster, and a beer mug made to order for the Dutch. The salts, all of
934
1661, depicting a boy filing a decanter with wine
in the foreground, which is housed in the Museum hollow hexagonal shape with a stepped spreading rim and base standing on six lion
Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam. Jan Steen was
935
living in Haarlem at this time. For this opinion and a mask and paw feet, in the Gemeentelijk Museum in Kampen (Fig. 3.4.2.1.1), the
detail of the painting, see McNulty, 2004, p. 20. Victoria and Albert Museum, and two private collections in the United States 937
936
913 Pinto de Matos, 2011, p. 193.
914 Harrison-Hall and Pinto de Matos date these ewers and Brazil, are of particular interest. The overall shape is known from Dutch, 939
938
to c.1610–1630, but Krahl dates them to the late
sixteenth or early seventeenth century. The ewers German and English silver salts of the late sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries
940
941
in the British Museum are published in Krahl and (Fig. 3.4.2.1.2). Salts of hexagonal shape are also known in contemporary French and
Harrison-Hall, 1994, pp. 22–23, no. 5; Harrison-Hall,
2001, p. 359, nos. 12:13 and 12:14; and Krahl, 2009, Dutch tin-glazed earthenware. Almost certainly, an earthenware, pewter or wooden
942
p. 331, no. 154. For the example in the private
collection, see Pinto de Matos, 2011, p. 198–199, model was given to the Chinese merchants to be copied, rather than an expensive
no. 77.
915 Harrison-Hall, 2001, p. 359; Krahl, 2009, p. 331; and silver model, which would have not been returned from Jingdezhen, as China was
Pinto de Matos, 2011, p. 198. then craving for silver. The potters copied faithfully the shape but decorated it in
943
916 See for example the body shape of a silver-gilt
cruet possibly made in the Southern Netherlands purely Chinese style. Salt was a commodity of great value throughout Europe during
(then under the rule of Spain) in c.1540; and that of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Elaborate gold or silver salts, often far larger in
a silver and parcel-gilt ewer made in Spain in about
1580–1599. Published in Charles Oman, The Golden size than the small quantity of salt they contained, were placed on the dining table
Age of Hispanic Silver 1400–1665, London, 1968, pl.
92, fig. 145; and pl. 144, fig. 225, respectively. Pairs reflecting the social standing of the salt. The Dutch not only used salt in their own
944
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