Page 304 - Chinese and japanese porcelain silk and lacquer Canepa

aspects such as the quality of the porcelain material, glaze and cobalt blue, as well as
shape and decoration. As will be shown, the VOC ordered porcelain with specific
decorative patterns provided by the Company servants and requested changes of
existing Chinese porcelain shapes that had been shipped earlier to the Dutch Republic.
Once again we see that the VOC’s main concern was to please its clientele of wealthy
burghers and merchants in the homeland and at the same time to make porcelain a
profitable trade good for the Company.
In September 1634, for example, Tayouan complained to Batavia about the
Chinese bringing porcelain with ‘some new paintings, but still none of our patterns
given to them two years ago’. In July of the following year, Batavia sent a letter
993
Fig. 3.4.2.2.7 Shard of a Kraak bowl excavated to Tayouan clearly stating the preference and demand of porcelain with Chinese
at Fort Zeelandia, Tayouan decorative patterns that were considered distinctively exotic in the Dutch Republic. It
Jingdezhen kilns, Jiangxi province
Ming dynasty, Chongzhen reign (1628–1644) reads: ‘Of large, fine bowls, of which 30 were received in three tubs by the Bredamme
© Lu Tai-kang
costing one real a piece, you can send 600 pieces or more yearly and the roundness
and fineness should be recommended seriously to the Chinese, also that all the large
copwerck [cups], jugs, pots, bottles, langhalsen [longnecks], clockcopkens [bell-cups]
in Europäischen Fassungen, Braunscweig, 1980, p.
219, fig. 95; and Ashmolean Museum, 1981, p. 33, etc should be painted curiously and skillfully, with Chinese persons on foot and on
nos. 46 and 47; respectively.
969 I am greatly indebted to Johann Bisschop, Director horseback, water, landscapes, pleasure-houses, their boats, birds and animals, all is well
of Museum Gemeente Hoogeveen, for granting me liked in Europe. Dutch paintings, flower or leafwork, like the longnecked bottles now
permission to include an image of the tankard in this
doctoral dissertation. Only a few porcelain tankards arrived with the junk Battavia, should be excused entirely, will not make half its price,
of this particular shape and decoration have been
994
recorded so far. because the Dutch paintings on porcelain are not considered strange nor rare’. In all
970 Mentioned in Huang, 2009–2010, p. 96. I am greatly probability the ‘Dutch paintings, flower or leafwork’ refer to the tulip-like flowers with
indebted to May Huang for granting me permission
to study and photograph these shards during a stiff leaves commonly seen on the neck of porcelain bottles, vases and ewers decorated in
research trip to Jingdezhen in 2010.
995
971 Published in Jörg, 1993, p. 185, pl. 2. the so-called Transitional style (Fig. 3.4.2.2.1). The fact that the ‘flower or leafwork’
972 Mentioned in Roderic H. Blackburn, ‘Transforming motifs are described as Dutch suggests that VOC servants had given to the Chinese
Old World Dutch Culture in a New World
Environment: Processes of Material Adaptation’, in merchants Dutch drawings, prints or wall-tiles depicting these popular flowers that
Blackburn and Kelley, 1987, pp. 97–98, fig. 3.
973 VOC 316. Cited in Viallé, 1992, p. 19. came to the Dutch Republic from Turkey, which were meticulously recorded in albums
974 VOC 863. Cited in Viallé, 1992, p. 22. or pamphlets of tulips, carnations and other flowers as a result of the ‘Tulipmania’
975 VOC 865. Cited in Viallé, 1992, p. 23.
976 This shape of mustard pot was also made in that rose from a highly speculative and lucrative trade in tulip bulbs on the stock
contemporary Dutch tin-glazed earthenware.
See an example from the Museum Boijmans Van market in the late 1630s, such as the nursery catalogue containing gouaches, drawings
Beuningen in Rotterdam, illustrated in Ostkamp, and watercolours entitled Tulip Book by P. Cos published in Haarlem in 1637 (Figs.
2011, p. 30, fig. 53.
977 Mustard pots of this particular shape are found 3.4.2.2.2a, b and c). One such album or pamphlet may have served as model for
996
in the Groninger Museum and the Butler Family
Collection in England. Published in Viallé, 1992, the symmetrical stylized tulip-like flowers depicted in the porcelain. They could also
p. 31 (lid missing); and Butler and Wang, 2006, pp. have been copied from tin-glazed earthenware wall-tiles, which were popular in the
320–321, no. 120, respectively.
978 See, for instance, the tin mustard pot with the Dutch Republic exactly at that time, such as the polychrome examples in the Museum
handle of a spoon passed through the hollow finial
997
illustrated in Ostkamp, 2011, p. 30, fig. 52. Boijmans Van Beuningen (Fig. 3.4.2.2.3) dating to c.1600–1650, and a single
979 For a mustard pot from the Butler Family Collection example in a private collection in The Netherlands dating to c.1630 (Fig. 3.4.2.2.4).
998
decorated with a continuous scene depicting three
figures sitting in a garden, see Sir Michael Butler, The ‘Dutch paintings’, as Jörg has pointed out, must refer to the landscape scenes with
Margaret Medley and Stephen Little, Seventeenth
Century Chinese Porcelain from the Butler Family large-scale Chinese figures and Western-style houses with divided windows along a
Collection, Alexandria, Virginia, 1990, pp. 88–89, river that are seen, together with stylized tulips, carnations and other flowers, on some
no. 45. For another example decorated with a river
Figs. 3.4.2.2.5a and b Kraak bowl landscape mounted in Dutch silver in the Victoria large Kraak bowls and dishes of the Chongzhen reign (Figs. 3.4.2.2.5a and b). The
Jingdezhen kilns, Jiangxi province and Albert Museum, see Kerr and Mengoni, 2011,
Ming dynasty, Chongzhen reign (1628–1644) p. 85, pl. 115. aforementioned porcelain clearly illustrates the response of the Chinese painters to
Diameter: 35.5cm; height: 15.2cm 980 See the mustard pot which bears a 1643 cyclical new European demands. They created new design compositions combining the typical
Groninger Museum, Groningen date sold at Sotheby’s London, 18 May 1971, lot 222,
(inv. no. 1978-0138) published in Sheaf and Kilburn, 1988, p. 28, pl. 16. Kraak panelled border with narrative scenes depicting both Chinese and European
981 See, for example, the aforementioned mustard
pot from the Butler Family Collection, and another motifs, and stylized flowers in the so-called Transitional style. 999 Dutch influence in
Fig. 3.4.2.2.6 Painting on leather depicting mounted example published in Richard S. Kilburn,
the VOC Forts Provintia and Zeelandia Transitional Wares and their Forerunners, exhibition this group of porcelain pieces is proven by the depiction of an almost identical gable
Taiwan, late seventeenth century catalogue, The Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong house in a scene with the VOC Forts Provintia and Zeelandia on a painting on leather
Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen Kong, 1981, p. 103, pl. 48. housed in the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin (Fig. 3.4.2.2.6). 1000 The gable house
zu Berlin, Berlin (inv. no. 37597) 982 Two globular and two baluster ribbed mustard

302 Trade in Chinese Porcelain 303