COLLECTING AND CONNOISSEURSHIP: SPOTLIGHTING THREE RENAISSANCE HABSBURG WOMEN

Number 27, May 2019 Letter from the President Research Ko-sometsuke and Shonzui Wares for the Japanese Market Discovered in Kiln Sites of Jingdezhen in Recent Years Cao Jianwen School of Art and Museology, Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute Translation by Lü Dongliang, revision by Dr. Baoping Li, editor and researcher at ART.ZIP, London Dear Members, This issue of the Newsletter demonstrates once more that the calibre of the Society’s members and contributing writers is peerless. As readers, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to those who have shared their knowledge and research with us here. In the pages that follow, we learn about porcelain made for the Japanese market that has been excavated in recent years in Jingdezhen. Emile de Bruijn of the National Trust explores bird and flower motifs on diverse objects in the collections of the National Trust. Exciting discoveries of early Chinese ceramics in Kenyan collections, that have been investigated by Professor Qin Dashu and his colleagues between 2010 and 2013, are introduced – the result of the largest excavation project on Chinese ceramics in the Indian Ocean Region since the discovery of Fustat in Old Cairo. Exhibitions on themes relating to Asian art are clearly thriving. Our contributors have visited shows about Ming porcelain at the Palace Museum, Beijing; Swords of Kyoto at Kyoto National Museum; Collecting and Connoisseurship: Spotlighting Three Renaissance Habsburg Women at Schloss Ambras, Innsbruck; and Japan’s Global Baroque, 1550-1650 at the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT. Joan Cummins of the Brooklyn Museum also describes the newly refurbished Korean gallery there. We have the opportunity to learn in detail about some stimulating conferences around the world. These include Dresden’s porcelain project (June 2018); Lisbon’s conference to honour the Indian textiles scholar Lotika Varadarajan; Jingdezhen’s conference on the theme of the Maritime Silk Road; a Victoria and Albert Museum conference investigating Middle Eastern Crafts, held in October 2018; and a fascinating account by Colin MacKenzie of the 2018 Chicago conference that explored Chinese bronzes in broad perspective. Book reviews too range widely, from Lisbon in the 16th and 17th centuries, through a Hong Kong collection of Jun Yao ceramics, to a thought-provoking discussion of Margaret Graves’ study of medieval Islamic portable art objects. One of the great pleasures of reading the OCS Newsletter is learning about ceramics which have travelled to unexpected places. I was thrilled to read about a Korean celadon fragment discovered in Bahrain by a joint French-Bahraini team of archaeologists; other articles discuss Edward Von der Porten’s work in Baja California, the city of Lima’s work on a historic site there which yielded Chinese porcelain shards; the recent discovery of a 17th century shipwreck in the harbour of the River Tagus; and locally excavated Chinese shards in a museum in the United Arab Emirates. Further articles look at collecting in Europe, from the joys of building a collection of Chinese and Japanese porcelain, to the Jenyns family collection, focussing on Arita chocolate cups, and an unusual piece of armorial porcelain from the Groninger Museum. I single out Dr. Minna Törma (University of Glasgow) who encourages us all to join the China Art Research Network online. This is a much-needed initiative which to some extent addresses the worrying decline in curatorial expertise in Britain’s regional museums, the subject of much press comment in recent months. The editors, Teresa and Beth, deserve our praise and thanks. Enjoy reading, and I look forward to seeing you soon at the Society’s lectures in London. With best wishes Ko-sometsuke and Shonzui wares are two types of export porcelain produced in Jingdezhen for the Japanese tea ceremony (chadō) during the 16th-17th centuries. Ko-sometsuke means ‘old blue-and-white’ and is a term used by Japanese ceramic scholars to refer to blue-and-white porcelain painted in a spontaneous, freehand and natural style made in the private kilns of Jingdezhen for export to Japan during the Tianqi (1621-27) and Chongzhen (1628-44) periods of the late Ming dynasty. Ko-sometsuke porcelain features irregular forms, complicated shaping technology, and mediocre glaze fit (thermal expansion incompatibility between the glaze and poorly levigated clay body). As a result, the glaze at the edges is prone to fall off, leading to extensive signs of mushikui or ‘insect nibbles’ which are common for this type of ware. Shonzui wares appeared later than ko-sometsuke wares and were mainly produced in Jingdezhen during the final reign of the Ming, the Chongzhen. Shonzui wares feature fine workmanship, regular shapes, brilliant colouring of cobalt-blue pigments, dense decorations, often against a ground of various diaper or brocade patterns. In addition, the reverse of Shonzui wares were usually marked in underglaze blue with ‘Made by Wu Xiangrui, the Wuliang Daifu’ (五良大 甫吴祥瑞造). The Chinese given name, Xiangrui, is pronounced Shonzui in Japanese and hence this ware, made for the Japanese, is known in English by its Japanese pronunciation. Wuliang Daifu, the style name of Wu Xiangrui, is elusive to interpret, and may be loosely translated as ‘Lord of Five Distinctions’. Ko-sometsuke and Shonzui wares are held in great esteem in Japan due to their close relationship with the Japanese tea ceremony. However, in their production centre in Jingdezhen, the specific kiln sites where these wares were fired could not be located by researchers. The specific location of the kilns and the relevant materials were a mystery of history that needed to be solved. Since 2001, Mr. Huang Qinghua and I have investigated some kiln sites in Jingdezhen and discovered fragments of ancient porcelains for the Japanese export market. Major locations of the kiln sites with such finds include Guanyinge, the Third Middle School, the Fifth Primary School, Zhongdukou, Shibaqiao, and Daijianong (fig. 1). A summary of the information about theses sites and the finds is provided below: Fig. 1 The map of the distribution of kilns in the old town of Jingdezhen which produced export porcelains for Japan. Photo by the author. The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 3 pattern, a ribbed dish with date marks of the Chinese sexagenary (Stems-and-Branches) cycle, and a dish with prunus and a double magpie motif with the mark ‘Made by Wu Xiangrui, the Wuliang Daifu’ (五良大甫 吴祥瑞造) on the base (fig. 4). Fig. 2 The fragments of ko-sometsuke wares unearthed at Yangtianwu, the Guanyinge kiln site, Jingdezhen. Photo by the author. 1. The Guanyinge Kiln Site The Guanyinge kiln site is located in the northern part of the old town in Jingdezhen. In early 2001, I found a large number of fine kraak porcelain fragments on the slope of the Yangtianwu Hill to the east of this kiln site (the east side of the current Guanyinge Water Plant). In the summer of that same year, when accompanying Yeh Wenhsiu, a Taiwanese researcher of ko-sometsuke wares, to investigate kiln sites in Jingdezhen, I discovered a fragment of a leaf-shaped mukozuke (向付) with three feet and a landscape design at Yangtianwu. Mukozuke means food dish, which were commonly made in sets of five or ten, and were essential items for the kaiseki meal that can accompany the tea ceremony. Mr. Tani Akira, a tea ceremony scholar at the Nomura Art Museum, attached great significance to this discovery and the find was published in the bulletin of that museum. Afterwards, I found several more small shards of ko-sometsuke wares at Yangtianwu, including the edges and feet of leaf-shaped mukozuke, the protruding corner of a fan-shaped incense container (kōgō) or polygonal bowl, a cover of an incense container, and the knob of a cover of a mizusashi (水 指, water jar for the tea ceremony) (fig. 2). From September to December 2007, the joint archaeological team formed by three institutions (School of Archaeology and Museology of Peking University, Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, and Jingdezhen Municipal Institute of Ceramic Archaeology) conducted archaeological excavations at three localities in the Guanyinge kiln site. Remains from strata from the Jiajing period (1522-66) 4 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter Fig. 3 White-glazed dishes with marks of ‘Made in the Tenbun Period’ or ‘Happiness, Longevity, Health and Peace’ unearthed at the Third Middle School kiln site, Jingdezhen. Photo by the author. at the excavation site include shards of numerous white-glazed porcelain dishes with underglaze cobalt blue marks on the base, such as ‘Made in the Tenbun Period’ (天文年造) or ‘May the Sea Stir No Waves’ (海不扬波) . These discoveries indicate that potters of the Guanyinge kilns began to produce porcelains specifically for Japan as early as Japan’s Tenbun period (1532-55). 2. The Third Middle School Kiln Site The Third Middle School kiln site is located to the south of the Guanyinge kiln site. From 2009 to 2015, large areas of ancient kilns dating from the Yuan to early Qing dynasties (14th-17th centuries) were exposed by urban construction in a vegetable field east of the school. Mr. Huang Qinghua and I gradually gathered more than 20 fragments of ko-sometsuke wares, Shonzui wares and finely potted kraak porcelains from the late Ming dynasty. The porcelain includes fragments of white-glazed foliated dishes with an underglaze cobalt blue mark on the base that reads ‘Made in the Tenbun Period’ (天文年造) or ‘Happiness, Longevity, Health and Peace’ (福寿康宁) (fig. 3), a blue-and-white mukozuke food dish with a double chrysanthemum design, a blueand-white dish with an unusual form and a human figure design, and dishes with a foliate rim or concave base decorated with an underglaze cobalt blue and red design of Eight Trigrams with flowers, or longevity peach. The Shonzui blue-and-white porcelain discovered includes fragments of a dish with a bamboo 3. The Fifth Primary School Kiln Site In August 2009, the Fifth Primary School of Jingdezhen located at No. 211 Zhonghua North Road was demolished for relocation. Mr. Huang Qinghua and I collected more than ten fragments of ko-sometsuke wares and ‘Nanking aka-e’ (南京赤绘) wares (enamel decoration where red dominates) made for Japan at the end of the Ming dynasty. The porcelain includes a multi-foot square bowl with an underglaze cobalt blue landscape design, a fan-shaped tripod mukozuke with an underglaze cobalt blue landscape design, a blue-and-white lion-shaped mukozuke, a four-footed and leaf-shaped white mukozuke, a blue-and-white mizusashi in the form of a bucket, a peach-shaped incense container decorated in underglaze cobalt blue Fig. 4 Blue-and-white dish with two magpies and prunus-blossom design and the mark ‘Made by Wu Xiangrui, Lord of Five Distinctions’, unearthed at the Third Middle School kiln site, Jingdezhen. Photo by the author. and red, and dishes painted with arhats (luohan) or a landscape motif in underglaze cobalt blue and overglaze wucai (five-coloured) enamels (fig. 5). In addition, a considerable number of fragments of other export porcelains, such as aka-e kinrande (‘red enamel and gold brocade’, 赤绘金襴手) and kraak porcelain have been unearthed at the Fifth Primary School kiln FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART UPCOMING AUCTIONS London 14 May 2019 5 November 2019 CONTACT Kate Hunt khunt@christies.com +44 (0) 20 7752 3389 A MAGNIFICENT GILT-BRONZE SEATED FIGURE OF BODHISATTVA Early Ming dynasty, 14th – 15th century Height: 14 ⅞ in. (37.5 cm.) (excluding stand) £300,000–500,000 London, 14 May 2019 Other fees apply in addition to the hammer price. See Section D of our Conditions of Sale at the back of the Auction Catalogue Auction Private Sales christies.com The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 5 Emblems of China: The Prominence of Landscape and Bird-and-Flower Scenery in 18th-Century Chinese Export Art Emile de Bruijn Senior Collections Development Registrar, National Trust Fig. 5 Fragments of export porcelain for Japan unearthed at the Fifth Primary School kiln site, Jingdezhen. Photo by the author. Fig. 6 Qing dynasty imitation Shonzhui blue-and-white fragments unearthed at the Shibaqiao kiln site, Jingdezhen. Photo by the author. site. All these discoveries demonstrate that this site was also an important export kiln area in Jingdezhen during the late Ming dynasty. a shrimp or grid design, and Shonzui blue-and-white pieces, such as a dish and a covered box. In addition, some fragments imitating Shonzui blue-and-white porcelain have been unearthed at Jinjianong which is part of the Shibaqiao kiln complexes. Japanese refer to this style of porcelain, which imitates Shonzui, as ‘New Shipping’ (sinto 新渡), and most were made during the Jiaqing and Daoguang reign periods (around the first half of the 19th century) of the Qing dynasty. Examples of these blue-and-white pieces include a tea bowl with a bamboo design and the mark ‘Made in the Jiaqing Period in Imitation of Wu Xiangrui’ (仿吴祥瑞制所 嘉庆年制), a tea bowl with a landscape design and the mark ‘Made by Wu Xiangrui, the Wuliang Taifu’ (五良太甫吴祥瑞制), and a dish with a prunus blossom design and the mark ‘Wu Xiangrui, the Wuliang Taifu’ (吴祥瑞五良太夫) (fig. 6). The Chinese characters used for Taifu on the latter pieces are a variant to those used on the original Shonzui porcelains, but having primarily the same meaning. 4. The Zhongdukou Kiln Site The Zhongdukou kiln site is located at the west of the Fifth Primary School and is close to the ferry of the east side of the Changjiang River (昌江, a different river from the Yangtze River, which is also called Changjiang, but with different characters). From 2011 to 2013, Mr. Huang Qinghua collected approximately ten fragments of ko-sometsuke and Nankin aka-e wares. The porcelain includes a blue-and-white fan-shaped mukozuke with a landscape design, a blue-and-white mizusashi with a lotus design, a blue-and-white dish with a landscape design, and dishes in the form of a peach or with human figure decoration in underglaze cobalt blue and overglaze wucai enamels. 5. Shibaqiao Kiln Site The Shibaqiao kiln site is located to the south of the Ming-Qing period Imperial Kiln Factory of Jingdezhen, and is close to both sides of the Zhonghua South Road. The area of the Shibaqiao kiln site was the business center of Jingdezhen during the Ming and Qing dynasties. From 2006 to 2010, Mr. Huang Qinghua and I gathered more than ten fragments of ko-sometsuke and Shonzui wares. Examples include a blue-andwhite multi-foot bowl in an unusual form, a blue-andwhite mizusashi in a flower vessel form with a dragon design, a blue-and-white dish with a foliate rim and a landscape design, small blue-and-white dishes with 6 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 6. The Daijianong and Zhejiang Road Kiln Sites From 2004 to 2009, I collected three fragments of ko-sometsuke wares of the late Ming dynasty at the Daijialong and Zhejiang Road kiln sites, which are located south of the Shibaqiao kiln site. These blueand-white fragments include a foliate rim mizusashi with a spiral design, a square tea bowl with a landscape design, and a six-sided dish decorated with the character ‘auspicious’ (吉) in its centre. The historic houses of the National Trust, with their associated collections of fine and decorative art, form a valuable yet under-utilised resource for the study of the history of taste and of ideas in the British Isles. These collections are not just limited to European art and design, but also contain numerous Asian items, including porcelain, lacquer, wallpaper and fabrics, which were brought to Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries. These objects were long regarded simply as ‘decorative’ art, which played a merely peripheral role, or as ‘export’ art, which was made in Asia but lacked authenticity because it was aimed at the western market. Now, however, these objects and materials can be more fruitfully studied within the relatively new conceptual framework of ‘material culture’, that is to say as artefacts that in some way express the needs, beliefs and aspirations of both their producers and their consumers. The historical and material context of the country house can enhance and clarify the significance of these objects, as it ties them to a particular person, family or class, to a particular room or decorative scheme, or to particular social customs, ways of life and world views. Having made a study of Chinese export wallpapers in the British Isles, I was struck by how the venerable Chinese artistic traditions of landscape and birdand-flower painting were adapted and repackaged in response to both the burgeoning European demand for Chinese goods and the development of a taste in Europe for paper wallcoverings. Wallpapers produced for the Chinese home market generally appear to have been plain or repetitively patterned, serving as backgrounds or foils to various types of paintings with bird-and-flower and landscape subjects and other decorative objects and surfaces. Although bird-andflower and landscape imagery was well-established in Chinese art, its appearance on wallpaper seems to have been in response to European demand, which was related to the increasing consumption of Chinese goods in Europe. This gave rise to the paradox – only apparent in retrospect – that while to Europeans these panoramic wallpapers would have looked quintessentially Chinese, to a Chinese viewer they must have seemed a radical, perhaps even transgressive innovation. Very little is known about the exact circumstances surrounding the origins of Chinese export wallpaper, but they probably arose as part of the interaction between Chinese artists and merchants and western traders in one of the Chinese ports frequented by Europeans during the first half of the 18th century, quite possibly the major entrepôt of Canton (present-day Guangzhou). This development coincided with the prominence of bird-and-flower and landscape scenery on other types of 18th-century Chinese ‘export’ art. In this short article I will note some fairly striking correlations in subject matter and style between Chinese export wallpapers, porcelain decorated in the so-called famille rose enamels, lacquered furniture, enamelled metal objects and mirror paintings, and suggest that there must have been some kind of cross-fertilisation taking place between them. The fact that the examples I will be discussing have been preserved in the collections of the National Trust will hopefully also illustrate how Chinese bird-and-flower and landscape motifs were used and appreciated in British upper-class interiors during the 18th century. Chinese paintings and prints appear to have come to Britain in some numbers from the late 17th century onwards and they were sometimes used as a kind of collage wall decoration. Actual Chinese wallpapers, however, only seem to have arrived in about 1750, the first recorded example being the bird-and-flower wallpaper at Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk, which was installed in 1752. This initial group of Chinese wallpapers was partly woodblock-printed and partly hand-painted, but from the 1760s all Chinese wallpapers coming to Europe appear to have been fully hand-painted, such as the set that Thomas Chippendale supplied and hung at Nostell Priory, West Yorkshire, in 1771 (fig. 1). The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 7 Fig. 1 Chinese wallpaper with bird-and-flower scenery (NT 959654) hung at Nostell Priory, West Yorkshire, in 1771. A Chinese porcelain famille verte vase, one of a pair (NT 959604), decorated with landscape and bird-and-flower vignettes, can be seen on top of the wardrobe. ©National Trust Images/Chris Lacey Fig. 2 Chinese landscape wallpaper, depicting people engaged in various occupations among houses and gardens with mountains beyond (NT 354141), hung at Blickling Hall, Norfolk, in about 1760. The small Chinese lacquer cabinet, probably 18th century, is decorated with a similar landscape in gold on black (NT 354232). ©National Trust Images/Chris Lacey 8 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter These wallpapers were painted with great skill and delicacy, transferring the traditional bird-and-flower motifs to huge wallpaper sheets which could cover the walls of a room in panoramic fashion, with the scenery continuing from one sheet to the next. The second half of the 18th century also saw the importation of Chinese landscape wallpapers (fig. 2) depicting idealised scenes of both work and leisure, sometimes derived from printed sources such as the Yuzhi gengzhitu (Pictures of Tilling and Weaving). Both bird-and-flower and landscape motifs were used abundantly on the Chinese porcelain in the so-called famille rose palette, called fencai or ‘pink colour’ in Chinese, which was developed from about 1720 and in which pink and other opaque enamels played a prominent part (fig. 3). Of course The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 9 Fig. 3 Square porcelain bottle decorated in overglaze enamels in famille rose colours with alternating scenes of birds and flowers and landscapes, probably mid-18th century (NT 870943), at Saltram, near Plymouth. ©National Trust/Sophia Farley & Denis Madge bird-and-flower motifs were not new to Chinese ceramics: they had also appeared on the so-called famille verte porcelains (see the vase on the wardrobe in fig. 1) that came to the fore in the Kangxi period (1662–1722) and in the blue-and-white wares of the Wanli period (1573–1620), known in the west as kraak porcelain. Indeed, the visual language of birds and flowers pervades Chinese material culture and has a lineage going back as least to the 10th century CE. But the 18th-century birds, flowers and landscapes in the famille rose palette achieved a remarkable variety of colour and detail and a particular consistency in how the various rocks, trees, shrubs, flowers, insects and birds were depicted and combined in auspicious groupings. This seems to echo the confidence with which the painters producing wallpapers for the export trade rendered the features of various birds, trees, buildings and mountains, creating the illusion of realism while at the same time faithfully reproducing the traditional symbolic frameworks. 10 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter The same landscape and bird-and-flower subjects were popular on the Chinese lacquer pieces of furniture made for export to the west. From the early 18th century onwards, the kind of lacquer produced in China for the west tended to be of the black and gold type, which was made particularly in Canton (Guangzhou). In China this was called yang qi or ‘foreign lacquer’, as it imitated Japanese black-and-gold lacquer, which was considered prestigious both in China and in Europe. Perhaps Canton workshops stepped up production of this type of lacquer for foreigners after the Dutch East India Company ceased ordering lacquer from the Japanese in 1693. Many of the yang qi lacquer objects, an example of which can be seen in fig. 2, were decorated with landscapes or bird-and-flower scenes – indeed both could appear on separate areas of the same object. The style in which birds and flowers and landscapes were depicted on yang qi lacquer was convincingly detailed, lively and confident, conveying the same sense of harmony and auspiciousness as Chinese landscape and bird-andflower wallpapers. Glass and mirror painting was another hybrid category of material culture, combining western demand and Chinese tradition, that flourished in the 18th century. The practice of painting on the back of glass plates – with the details being painted first and the background last – seems to have been introduced to China from Europe, and the plate glass was imported from Europe as well. Often mirrored glass was used, with the paint applied in areas where the tin and mercury backing had been scraped away. The resulting lacquer-like pictures or pictorially enhanced mirrors were then reexported to Europe to serve as fashionably exotic decorations in upper-class bedrooms and dressing rooms. Many of the surviving mirrors have rococo-style frames, attesting to their popularity in the mid-18th century. Some of these glass paintings were painted with the ubiquitous bird-and-flower scenes, but others were effectively genre scenes, showing human figures in garden or landscape settings. Elements of some of these pictures seem to be derived from the genre of meiren hua (Paintings of Beautiful Women), showing female figures in situations suggesting love or longing. The mirror painting in fig. 4, from Stourhead in Wiltshire, appears to depict such a romantic scene, with the couple on the left in an intimate embrace, possibly reading a book of love poetry, while the lone female figure on the right wistfully gazes at a pair of cooing doves with trees and a picturesque lake framing the view. The similarity with the artificial lake in the garden at Stourhead is suggestive and indeed pictures like this one, and bird-and-flower and landscape imagery on imported Chinese objects more generally, may have played a role in stimulating the development of the English landscape garden. The decoration of metal objects with painted enamels, introduced into China by the Jesuit missionaries residing at the court in Beijing, was actively encouraged under the Kangxi and Yongzheng emperors in the 1710s and 1720s. Soon enamelled objects were being produced both in the Beijing palace workshops – for use by the court – and in Guangzhou – for the wider market, including European merchants (fig. 5). This is reminiscent of how some famille rose porcelains were produced for export while others, of higher quality but using essentially the same materials, colours and motifs were made for the imperial court. This leads to the question whether the demand from Europe for objects decorated with landscape and bird-and-flower imagery may have helped to stimulate their popularity in China. Did the increased use of these types of scenery on different categories of export goods have the effect of also reinforcing the prominence of this visual language in the home market? It would seem to be significant that when the retired Qianlong Emperor decorated one of his private retreats in the Forbidden City, the Juanqinzhai (Studio of Exhaustion from Diligent Service), in the 1770s, it had walls painted with panoramic palace garden scenery – was this a distant, very refined echo of the panoramic wallpaper produced for export? It appears that through an exchange of materials, techniques and styles, enabled by international trade, Chinese bird-and-flower and landscape scenery became associated with up-to-date sophistication in both Europe and China during the 18th century. For the study of the Chinese export wallpapers in the British Isles, see Emile de Bruijn, Chinese Wallpaper in Britain and Ireland, London, Philip Wilson in association with the National Trust, 2017 (reviewed in last year’s Newsletter, Number 26, May 2018, pp. 52-3). Fig. 4 Chinese mirror painting (using European mirror glass) depicting figures in a setting of decorative rocks, birds, flowers and trees at the edge of a lake, with buildings on the opposite shore, probably mid-18th century (NT 452429), at Stourhead, Wiltshire. ©National Trust/Seamus McKenna Fig. 5 Round, ogee-edged copper box decorated with enamels, including landscape and bird-and-flower vignettes against diaperpatterned backgrounds in pink and yellow, probably mid- or late-18th century (NT 207702), at Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire. ©National Trust/Norman Anderson The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 11 News from Africa ceramics concerned based on the production periods and origins, and reached some important conclusions. A. The earliest date that Chinese ceramics were exported to Kenya is the 9th century AD. Nineteen fragments of Changsha ware were excavated at the Shanga site. They are the earliest Chinese ceramics found in Kenya (fig. 1). Kenya An Investigation of Chinese Ceramics Discovered in Kenya and their Significance* B. Before the colonial period, the peak of Chinese ceramics exported to the Indian Ocean region was late Southern Song to early Ming dynasty (second half of the 13th century to first quarter of the 15th century), with Longquan ware as the main export commodity (fig. 2), and a small amount of Jingdezhen porcelain (fig. 3). Qin Dashu Professor, School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University Translation by Dr. Baoping Li, editor and researcher at ART.ZIP, London *Partially reprinted from Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400-1450, edited by Craig Clunas, Jessica Harrison-Hall and Luk Yu-ping Under the auspices of the Ministry of Commerce of China, the joint archaeological team of Peking University and the National Museum of Kenya (lead by Professor Qin Dashu) made three archaeological investigations between 2010 and 2013 on Chinese ceramics discovered by other scholars from earlier archaeological excavations or surveys in 37 ancient sites or archaeological contexts (such as a shipwreck) in the coastal areas of Kenya. These include some wellknown Swahili ruins such as the Fort Jesus ruins (built by the Portuguese in 1593, and occupied by them until 1698) in Mombasa, Gedi Ruin in Malindi, Shanga site in Pate Island, and Manda in Manda Island, etc. At the same time, a small number of Chinese ceramics with unknown discovery sites were also studied, which were housed in three museums including the Fort Jesus Museum in Mombasa, the Lamu Museum and the Gede Museum. A total of 9,552 Chinese ceramic fragments (or restored pieces) were thus identified and investigated. In addition, the team also carried out the China-Kenya Cooperative Overland Archaeological Excavation Project during the three years, and a total of 1,060 Chinese ceramic fragments were unearthed and investigated. Furthermore, the project also covered a small amount of ceramic finds that had been produced in Japan or Southeast Asia. Altogether, 10,612 pieces of Chinese ceramics were investigated over the three-year period. This research and excavation project is the second largest ever carried out on Chinese ceramics discovered in the ancient ruins of the Indian Ocean region, second only to the 12,704 pieces investigated by Japanese scholars on the site of Fustat in old Cairo. This project, considering Kenya as an independent unit, conducted a statistical analysis of all the Chinese 12 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter C. In Kenya, imperial blue-and-white porcelain from the Yongle period (fig. 4) and a certain number of Longquan official celadon wares of the early Ming dynasty were found, which seem to support that Zheng He’s fleet had been to the coastal areas of Kenya. Fig. 3 Fig. 1 Fig. 4 D. It was in the mid-Ming dynasty that Kenya had a short peak of consuming Chinese ceramics, which was related to the global trade that Portugal carried out in the second half of the 16th century. E. The Wanli period at the beginning of the 17th century and the Kangxi period at the end of the 17th century were the times with the most abundant discovery of Chinese ceramics in Kenya, but part of the finds differed from Chinese ceramics found in other regions which had been traded by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and were of inferior quality. Maybe during these times, the Portuguese were still carrying out small-scale maritime trade, but the porcelain products may have come from the Dutch East India Company trade. This indicates that there were stable relationships between various purchasing groups and workshops in contemporary Jingdezhen. Some of our archaeological investigation reports have been published according to site, others are still being researched. Fig. 2 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 13 News from Asia Fig 2. Large dragon vat of the Zhengtong period (1436-49) and three sizes of flowerpots with auspicious beast amongst sea waves or winged dragon designs, probably Zhengtong. Refilling the Interregnum: Newly Discovered Imperial Porcelains from Zhengtong, Jingtai and Tianshun Reigns (1436-1464) of the Ming Dynasty, Art Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), 2018. Photo courtesy of CUHK. Catalogue of the same title edited by Wang Guanyu in press. China Exhibition: Ming Imperial Porcelain Exhibition Series at the Palace Museum, Beijing in Recent Years: Focusing on the Interregnum (1436–1464) and the Jiajing, Longqing, and Wanli Reigns (1522–1620), Beijing, November 2018-February 2019 Fig 3. First of the two-volume catalogue of the exhibition of porcelain of the Jiajing, Longqing and Wanli periods. Fig 4. Ritual vessel dou (stem plate) with cover and iron-red glaze made for the Altar of Sun in the Jiajing period (1522-66), unearthed with fragments of same vessel shape with other glaze colours of blue, yellow and white, as sacrificial wares for respective altars in Beijing. Dr. Baoping Li Editor and researcher at ART.ZIP, London, and Honorary Senior Research Associate, Institute of Archaeology, University College London (UCL) Fig 1.Dishes with tusked sea creature (“Sea Elephant”) design from strata of Zhengtong to Tianshun period at Jingdezhen kiln site and the Ming-Qing royal collection, Exhibition of Imperial Porcelain from the Zhengtong, Jingtai and Tianshun Periods, Palace Museum, Beijing, 2018. Photograph courtesy of Wang Jin. China is attaching increasing significance to cultural heritage, while new archaeological discoveries continually emerge from land and from shipwreck sites in the sea. As a result, museums across the country are launching a large number of new exhibitions on a regular basis. A major one was just held at the Palace Museum, Beijing, entitled Porcelain of the Ming 14 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter Imperial Kilns: Comparing Wares of the Jiajing, Longqing, and Wanli Reigns from the Imperial Kiln Site of Jingdezhen and the Palace Museum Collection. Jointly organised by the Palace Museum and the Jingdezhen Municipal Institute of Ceramic Archaeology, the exhibition was the last of a series of six similar exhibitions by the two parties since 2015 that featured Ming imperial porcelains from the Ming-Qing collection of the Museum and fragments or reconstructed pieces excavated from their kiln site in Jingdezhen over the past three decades. Take two exhibitions held at the Museum for example. One featured Ming and Qing imperial porcelain from the imperial kiln site in Jingdezhen, and from a pit inside the Palace Museum that was excavated in 2014 and seems to have been used by the imperial court of the Forbidden City to bury porcelains broken from use. The exhibition was accompanied with the catalogue The Porcelain of Imperial Kiln in Ming and Qing Dynasties: The New Achievements in Ceramic Archaeology of the Palace Museum and Jingdezhen (Beijing, 2016). The other exhibition, held in 2018, focused on porcelains of the so-called Interregnum period, namely the Zhengtong (1436-49), Jingtai (1450-57), and Tianshun (1457-64) reigns. This was a period of political turmoil. Unlike the preceding Xuande reign and later reigns, imperial porcelains from the Interregnum period bear no reign marks, and are thus difficult to identify. As a result, for a long time only a few examples have been discovered and/or identified either from the imperial kiln site or from the imperial collection now in the two Palace Museums in Beijing and Taipei, and thus this period came to be referred to as a ‘blank period’ or ‘dark period’. However, it is hard to believe that the imperial kilns and a large number of private kilns in Jingdezhen stopped firing porcelain and that the imperial court and commoners stopped using its products completely, and a few historical records do indicate otherwise. As a matter of fact, porcelain from this period has continued to be found at kiln sites in the past decades, as well as at tombs of Ming princes, such as those in Hubei. In 2012, supported by the Jingdezhen Municipal Institute of Ceramic Archaeology, the exhibition Filling the Interregnum: Ming Mid-15th Century Ceramics from Jingdezhen held at the Art Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), featured the Museum’s own collection and kiln site finds from Jingdezhen. Two years later, in 2014, an unprecedented number of imperial porcelain Fig. 3 Fig. 4 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 15 bear a mark of the Wanli period and a dragon motif. They may have been placed in the mausoleum as part of fengshui (Chinese geomancy) practice, like those found in other Ming aristocrats’ tombs across China. However, we are yet to completely figure out how and why this funerary custom of placing meiping in elite tombs formed during the Ming and then disappeared in the Qing when the Manchu people ruled China. It is also still unclear for what purpose the colossal Wanlimarked meiping were made. Were they made specifically for burials (it is common for Chinese people to start preparing key funerary objects years before death)? Or more likely, were they meant for use in real life at the court (as wine containers or display items, etc.), but eventually ended up as fengshui vases in the mausoleum? Answers to such questions would help us to understand how the Chinese treated life, art, rituals and funerals, and may be better answered by collective efforts of both archaeologists and curators. More materials on Ming porcelain can be found in the ongoing series of Recent Researches and Exhibitions on Ming Dynasty Porcelain Outside China by the author, published online in Chinese (e.g., Part I: http://www. artzip.org/researches-exhibitions-ming-dynastyporcelain-china). Fig 5. Pair of meiping bearing a Wanli mark (1573-1620), excavated in 1956 from the Dingling mausoleum of the Wanli Emperor, now in the collection of the Palace Museum, November 2018–February 2019. Height: 72 and 73 cm. Photo courtesy of Lü Chenglong, the Palace Museum, Beijing. objects dated to these Interregnum reigns (from stratigraphy and stylistic analysis, etc.) were found at kiln sites in Jingdezhen, including extremely rare types such as blue-and-white pillows, drum-shaped garden stools, and flowerpots. This unexpected major discovery lead to an exhibition at the Palace Museum that was held in May-June, 2018, followed in SeptemberDecember by an exhibition of a similar topic at the CUHK (fig. 2), and another upcoming at the Shanghai Museum in May 2019. Compared with Interregnum wares, the porcelains featured in the exhibition of the Jiajing (152266), Longqing (1567-72) and Wanli (1573-1620) reigns are much better known, even though there are still numerous questions to answer. This exhibition featured about 300 objects (or sets) from these periods, as well as a small number of copies made in the Qing dynasty or the Republic period. These are illustrated in a catalogue, with Lü Chenglong and Jiang Jianxin from the two organisations as chief editors (fig. 3). Object types were wide ranging, including ritual or religious items (fig. 4), vessels for eating, drink and 16 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter storage, studio pieces, display or leisure items such as chess boards and cricket cages, etc. The beauty and technological achievements (by then standard) of these objects are fascinating in themselves. Noteworthy objects include an extraordinarily large pair of Wanli-marked meiping (‘prunus vases’) (fig. 5). Different from other exhibition objects from the Museum, these meiping were not heirloom pieces. They were recovered from the celebrated Dingling mausoleum of the Wanli Emperor near Beijing. Meiping are among the most elegant and interesting Chinese ceramic vessel shapes, with a thousand-year history, first made as wine containers but eventually becoming flower vases. The meiping vases from Dingling are of particular interest. A total of eight large covered blue-and-white meiping have been recovered from the mausoleum. Four of them came from the Emperor’s funeral chamber, and two pairs came from those of his two Empresses. Two, measuring about 45 cm in height, bear a mark of the Jiajing period and are decorated with floral motifs. The other six meiping, ranging from about 71 to 75 cm in height, Fine Chinese Art New Bond Street, London | Thursday 16 May 2019 ENQUIRIES +44 (0) 20 7468 8248 chinese@bonhams.com bonhams.com/chineseart AN EXCEPTIONALLY RARE AND LARGE BLUE AND WHITE ‘IMMORTALS’ DOUBLE-GOURD VASE Jiajing six-character mark and of the period £80,000-120,000 * * For details of the charges payable in addition to the final hammer price, please visit bonhams.com/buyersguide China Japan Jingdezhen ‘the Belt and Road’ International Conference: Heritage and Transcendence, October 18–19, 2018 Exhibition: Swords of Kyoto: Master Craftsmanship from an Elegant Culture at the Kyoto National Museum, September 29–November 25, 2018 Yanjun Weng Jingdezhen Ceramic Archaeology Institute Suekane Toshihiko Curator of Metalwork, Kyoto National Museum Melissa M. Rinne, Research Fellow, Kyoto National Museum Paul Martin NBSK Trustee (Association for the Promotion of Japanese Sword Culture) The theme of the Maritime Silk Road Conference held in Jingdezhen was the export porcelains of Jingdezhen and their related social, economic, political, and cultural background and foreign exchanges (fig. 1). 19 scholars made presentations to the 97 attendees, who included government officials and NGO leaders from China, England, Holland, America, Japan and Singapore. With his study on the tribute trade porcelains of the Hongwu (1368-1398) to Xuande reigns (1425-1435) during the Ming dynasty, which were excavated at the imperial kiln site in Jingdezhen, Professor Jianxin Jiang from the Jingdezhen Ceramic Archaeology Institute discussed the official exchange of Jingdezhen highquality porcelains by Chinese emperors in the early Ming dynasty with the Islamic world. Meanwhile, many other speakers shared the materials they gathered from outside China through on-site investigation and archaeological excavations. For example, Professor Qin Dashu discussed the investigation of the Mombasa shipwreck, analyzing the origins and percentage of Chinese ceramic wares found on the ship and pointed out the correlation of the rise and decline of Portuguese power in East Africa and its links to the ceramic trade. Dr. Lim Chen Sian from the Archaeology Unit ISEAS introduced ceramic assemblages focusing on the period of the 14th to 17th centuries from several major excavations over the past 30 years that have been uncovered in Singapore. Archaeological investigations there have yielded large quantities of Chinese ceramics, underscoring that highquality porcelain from the Jingdezhen kiln complex was part of an insatiable demand for Chinese goods. Professor Tatsuya Mori from Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts in Japan talked about his personal investigation of the Ardebil Shrine in Iran, the Topkapi Saray in Istanbul, as well as finds from Siraf, Kish, Hormuz, and Madhuban along the northern Persian Gulf area. Professor Nigel Wood from Oxford University presented work about the responses by Middle Eastern 18 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter Fig. 1 potters to the Chinese trade wares, with a particular focus on how convincing copies of imported Chinese wares illustrated a measure of the sophistication in glass and ceramic technologies in Islamic lands during the Abbasid (750-1258) and Mamluk (1250-1517) periods. While Dr. Lingchuan Wang from Jingdezhen University analyzed the technological development and differences in production between China and Europe and its influence on the porcelain industry in Jingdezhen today. Dr. Baoping Li from University College London gave a brief introduction to a few Chinese ceramics related to the Silk Roads housed in the collection of the British Museum. Examples included Tang dynasty (618-907) ceramics analogous to those from the Belitung shipwreck, early Ming dynasty blue-and-white porcelain inspired by Islamic metal wares, and Chinese stoneware storage jars exported as containers over the centuries to Southeast Asia and Japan. Interestingly, Suzanne Kluver from the Museum Prinsenhof Delft presented her observations on the past, present, and future of cultural exchanges between Jingdezhen and Delft through a case-study of the exhibition, ‘Porcelain for the Forbidden City’, held in Delft. Finally, other scholars shared their research and opinions on the heritage, innovation, logistics, tourism, etc. of the Jingdezhen porcelain industry, with the aim of reviving it. From the ancient times to the present, the former imperial capital of Kyoto has been home to some of Japan’s most talented swordsmiths, who have produced magnificent blades. Though swords made in various regions are associated with ‘Yamashiro’ (the former name of the province around Kyoto), those actually made in the capital have always had the highest status, prized by nobility and samurai alike. During the Edo period (1615-1868), swords were frequently exchanged among the feudal lords, known as daimyo, and a sword from Kyoto was considered the ultimate gift. The exhibition, Swords of Kyoto: Master Craftsmanship from an Elegant Culture, features approximately 170 blades — including 19 National Treasures and 61 Important Cultural Properties — by prominent smiths, who were either from Kyoto, or who worked in the Yamashiro (Kyoto) tradition between the Heian (794-1185) and Heisei (1989-present) periods (figs. 1-3). These works illustrated the proliferation of the Kyoto style of workmanship and its profound influence on Japanese sword-making around the country. Among the highlights of the exhibition were swords that belonged to major historical figures such as the warlord, Oda Nobunaga (1534-82), and the popular samurai statesman, Sakamoto Ryōma (1836-67), as well as swords and other items associated with the medieval Emperor Go-Toba (1180-1239), whose patronage of swordsmiths elevated their status within Japanese society. Also on view were folding screens and scrolls with illustrations of battles in which swords were used, historical objects from the Gion Festival, prized possessions of famous daimyo, and swords forged by members of the aristocracy. The exhibition highlighted the role of the swordsmith in Kyoto culture in relation not only to the warrior class, but also to the imperial court and the townspeople. This was the largest sword exhibition in the Kyoto National Museum’s 120-year history, and it took place amidst a dramatic rise in the popularity of Japanese swords among young people, due in part to the prevalence of an online game called Touken Ranbu in which historical sword blades are anthropomorphized as handsome boys. Through eight sections, this exhibition revealed the lasting influence that Kyoto sword-making has had on Japanese culture over a period of eight hundred years, via the elegant beauty of forged steel. I. The Birth of Kyoto Swords During the late Heian period (7941185), approximately 360 years after the capital had moved from Nara to Kyoto, Japan’s aristocracy was in turmoil, rife with internal conflicts and disputes over succession of the imperial line. This confusion led to a rise in the power of the warrior (samurai) class, who used military force to restructure the aristocratic system. This marked a Fig. 1 Long Sword (Tachi) (Kiku Gosaku). Important Cultural Property. With hairline chrysanthemum engraving. Attributed to Emperor Go-Toba (1180–1239). Japan; Kamakura period, 13th century. Forged steel. Overall L. 96.1. Kyoto National Museum. Fig. 2 Long Sword (Tachi). National Treasure. Inscription: “Norikuni.” By Awataguchi Norikuni (dates unknown). Japan; Kamakura period, 13th century. Forged steel. Overall L. 96.7. Kyoto National Museum Fig. 3 Long Sword (Katana). Important Cultural Property. Inscription: “Umetada Myōju (kaō), resident of Nishijin, Yamashiro province / A day in the 8th month, 1598. This should not be passed on to others.” By Umetada Myōju (dates unknown). Japan; Momoyama period, dated 1598. Forged steel. Overall L. 82.3. Kyoto National Museum. The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 19 turning point between ancient Japan and the arrival of the medieval age. Kyoto’s great tradition of sword manufacture began eight hundred years ago with the emergence of Sanjō Munechika, pioneer of the Kyoto sword-makers, and his school. They and other smiths from Kyoto are known as the Yamashiro swordmakers. This section introduced the earliest works of the Yamashiro tradition with blades by Munechika, the Sanjō school, and the later Gojō school. II. Emperor Go-Toba and the Goban Kaji In the early Kamakura period (1185-1333), Emperor Go-Toba (1180-1239) succeeded the imperial throne before his older brother Emperor Antoku had relinquished it — meaning that Go-Toba ascended without the official ritual passing of the sacred imperial regalia. In fact, the imperial sword was later lost in battle. Because this contravened the traditional codes of enthronement in aristocratic society, it was regarded as a blemish on his legitimacy — a matter with which Emperor Go-Toba was rumored to be deeply concerned. According to legend, Emperor Go-Toba decided to try and recreated the sacred sword himself by enlisting the help of swordsmiths known as the goban kaji (literally ‘smiths on the imperial roster’). Each of their swords, called kiku gyōsaku, was marked by a hairline engraving of a chrysanthemum on the tang. This section introduced actual kiku gosaku swords (fig. 1) said to have been made, or at least quenched (rapidly cooled, a final step in the fabrication process), by Emperor Go-Toba, together with other chrysanthemum-engraved blades. These swords collectively relate the history of why swordsmiths hold a special position in Japanese society. IV. The Golden Age of Kyoto Swords The culture of Kyoto is very deep and vast, and its sword traditions are no exception. During the late Kamakura period, a number of important swordsmith schools grew up in addition to the Awataguchi school. The Rai school, which appeared around the mid-13th century, was known for its extremely high-quality workmanship. It had, in fact, a greater influence on Kyoto culture than the Awataguchi school, as well as a more far-reaching impact extending into other areas of the country. By the 14th century, branches of the Rai school had spread throughout Japan. This section introduced works by the best known smiths of the main Rai school, as well as masterworks produced by members of the associated branches. V. A Decline in Sword-making in Kyoto The smiths of Yamashiro enjoyed unrivaled prosperity from the Heian period through the end of the Kamakura period (late 1100s through early 1300s); however, following the collapse of the Kamakura government and the North-South divide of the imperial court during the Nanbokuchō period (1333-92), Kyoto’s sword-making tradition went into decline. It was supplanted by a rise in popularity of swords made in the province of Bizen (Okayama prefecture), which had the largest community of smiths in Japan, and by the emergence of sword-makers in Mino (Gifu prefecture). This section focused on the surviving works of the Hasebe and Nobukuni schools, which, even during the constant upheaval of the times, managed to break new ground by incorporating elements of the Sōshū (Sagami province) school into the traditional Yamashiro style. named Umetada Myōju (fig. 3). Myōju was a master of the Umetada school of metal workers, who had been in the direct employ of the Muromachi government. This section introduced masterpieces by the Umetada, Horikawa, and Mishina schools of sword-making, evoking the splendor of Momoyama culture. VII. The Proliferation of the Yamashiro Tradition News of the state-of-the-art workmanship of the recently established Umetada, Horikawa, and Mishina schools in Kyoto reverberated throughout the sword world. Many aspiring sword-makers came to the capital to learn skills from its master smiths. As a result, swordmaking techniques that had been developed in Kyoto spread across the country. Among them was Umetada Myōju’s first direct disciple, Tadayoshi of Hizen province in Kyushu. Kunisada and Kunisuke of the Horikawa school, and Yoshimichi of the Mishina school moved to Settsu (Osaka) and perfected the style known as Osaka Shintō. This section featured exceptional swords of the Shintō era, displaying Kyoto’s elegant cultural influence, with a special focus on master smiths of the Osaka Shintō line and their Yamashiro lineage. VIII. Swords and the People of Kyoto Being craftsmen, swordsmiths were part of the commoner townspeople (machishū) class in Kyoto, but what was their actual social standing within the capital? And how did blades made by these swordsmiths make their way into the possession of Kyoto’s many city temples and shrines — which had close connections with its residents? The final section addressed these and other questions pertaining to the interrelationships among swords, sword-makers, and the people of Kyoto. It looked at swords donated as offerings to Kyoto’s ancient shrines and temples, as well as those treasured by private citizens. It also discussed swordsmiths who submitted weapons for ritual use in Kyoto’s traditional festivals and introduced the smith Monju Kanemitsu who in 1785 helped lead a commoners’ uprising (the Fushimi Gimin Incident) against injustice, earning him the admiration of painter Itō Jakuchū (1716–1800) and others. The final objects were swords by the last smith working in the Yamashiro tradition, Living National Treasure, Sumitani Masamine (1921–1998). Asian Art For Valuation and Sales Advice yexueli@sworder.co.uk III. Yoshimitsu and the Awataguchi School In the early 13th century, a settlement of swordsmiths in the Awataguchi area of Kyoto became collectively known as the Awataguchi school. Two smiths in this group, Kunitomo and Kuniyasu, are said to have served Emperor Go-Toba as goban kaji; other smiths in the school included Hisakuni, Kunikiyo, Arikuni, and Kunitsuna. Yoshimitsu was the consummate Yamashiro smith, renowned for the unparalleled purity of his steel. This section introduced the works of the Awataguchi school (fig. 2), and the masterpieces of Yoshimitsu — extraordinary blades of dignity and superior workmanship. VI. A Swordmaking Revival in Kyoto The Ōnin war began in Kyoto but eventually spread across the nation, leading to an era of intense rivalry between local warlords (sengoku daimyō). The most prominent of these daimyo aimed to rebuild Kyoto, resulting in major construction projects such as Oda Nobunaga’s Nijō Castle and Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s palace Jurakutei and Fushimi Castle. The activity attracted many craftsmen to the capital, including the swordsmiths Kunihiro and his students from Hyūga (Miyazaki prefecture), as well as Kanemichi and his son from Mino province. This new generation of smiths founded the Horikawa and Mishina schools. Around the same time appeared a sword-maker 01279 817778 www.sworder.co.uk @swordersfineart Cambridge Road | Stansted Mountfitchet Essex | CM24 8GE The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 21 20 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter A Chinese yellow ground and green enamelled plate, late Qing dynasty News from Europe Austria Exhibition: Collecting and Connoisseurship: Spotlighting Three Renaissance Habsburg Women at the Schloss Ambras, Innsbruck, Austria, June 14–October 7, 2018 Fig. 2 Annemarie Jordan Gschwend, PhD Research Scholar & Curator, Centro de Humanidades (CHAM), Lisbon and Zurich Fig. 3 Fig. 1 The 2018 summer exhibition at Schloss Ambras in Innsbruck, a second museum of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, showcased three prominent women of the Habsburg dynasty, who were queen consorts and regents for most of the sixteenth century, from 1496 to 1578. Guest curated by Dagmar Eichberger and Annemarie Jordan Gschwend, the objective of this exhibition was to focus on leading women of the Habsburg house: Margaret of Austria (1480-1530), daughter of Emperor Maximilian I and aunt of Emperor Charles V and two of Charles’ sisters, Mary (1505-1558), queen of Bohemia and Hungary and Catherine of Austria (1507-1578), queen of Portugal (fig. 1). The venue was an ideal setting, as the Renaissance castle of Schloss Ambras located outside of Innsbruck, once belonged to a younger relative of these three 22 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter women, Archduke Ferdinand II of Tryol (1529-1595). It still houses the first extensive Kunstkammer, armoury and exotica collection ever created north of the Alps after the mid-sixteenth century (fig. 2). Some relevant objects have remained in situ in the reconstructed curiosity cabinets or vitrines, while other outstanding objects now form the heart of the newly restored Kunstkammer, the former imperial collections, at the Kunshistorisches Museum in Vienna. Ferdinand II’s assemblage of armour, books, instruments, Ming porcelain, exotica and other objects and rarities from the New World, Africa, Asia and the Far East is now considered to be the earliest museum in Europe (fig. 3). Margaret of Austria and her two nieces, Mary and Catherine, were capable rulers and politicians, who used their power and connections to undertake serious patronage and collecting in their life-times, leaving an indelible mark upon the history of collecting in the Renaissance. They deployed various media to define their social status, rank and wealth within the Habsburg dynasty and at other European courts. More recently, the role of prominent Habsburg women as cultural agents involved in the acquisition, collecting, display and ownership of collections has been given more recognition. As political representatives of emperors and as wives of ruling kings at other European courts, these women had access to the best artists, sculptors and architects of their time, and at the same time were able to satisfy their passion for collecting by resorting to international agents, dealers and intermediaries. To highlight their achievements in the arts, animal husbandry, hunting, music and architecture, over one hundred art works from Asia, Africa and the New World were borrowed from leading European museums and private collectors in Austria, Hungary, Portugal, Switzerland and Germany, as well as the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Weltmuseum and Austrian National Library in Vienna. These included, Kunstkammer objects, Flemish tapestries, portraits, sculptures, illuminated manuscripts, gems, jewellery, religious works and exotic objects from new foreign lands. Such treasures and luxury articles were important for courtly representation in the Renaissance and reflected the social status, rank and wealth of such ruling families as the Habsburgs in the 16th century. Archduchess Margaret of Austria (1480-1530), Princess of Asturias and later Duchess of Savoy, was appointed governess of the Burgundian Netherlands by her father Emperor Maximilian I in 1506. She was an astute ruler, who was successful in bringing about the ‘Ladies’ Peace’ in 1529 and ending the war between France and Burgundy. She resided in Mechelen (Malines) at the Palais de Savoie which stills stands, and where she established her outstanding art collection. Margaret is regarded as a forerunner and role model for subsequent generations of women in her family. Her niece, Mary of Hungary (1505-1530), a sister of Emperor Charles V, succeeded Margaret as governess. She demonstrated an outstanding talent in the field of politics, had exquisite taste and cultivated a love of the arts and culture in the Netherlands. It was at the Malines court where Mary experienced her aunt’s outstanding collection and library firsthand. Later as widow and while appointed regent from 1530 to 1556, Mary inherited Margaret’s library and implemented the idea for a Habsburg dynastic portrait gallery in Brussels in the Coudenberg palace, which impacted similar galleries in Spain and Portugal. Mary soon became a leading patron in the Netherlands, building palaces at Binche, Mariemont and Turnhout, and collaborating closely with such painters and sculptors as Guillaume Scrots, Barend van Orley, Anthonis Mor, Leone Leoni and Jacques DuBroecq. Queen Catherine of Austria (1507-1578), the youngest sister of Emperor Charles V, was exposed to other collecting trends in Spain and Portugal. She specialized in the importation of exotica and luxury wares from Africa, Asia and the New World. She supplied the Habsburg family network with foreign objects, exotica and wild animals from all the global hotspots of the Portuguese trade empire. The Art of Power. Habsburg Women in The Renaissance, the exhibition’s English title, for the first time showcased these three ladies in five temporary exhibition rooms in the upper castle at Schloss Ambras. Five themes grounded the show: Rooms One & Two focused on the rise of the Habsburg dynasty, their global rule and strategic marriages, which transformed Emperors Maximilian I and Emperor Charles V into the most powerful players of the European stage between 1500 and 1558. It was into this new, upstart dynasty that these women were born. Room Three centered on Margaret of Austria as regent of the Netherlands from 1506 to 1530. Room Four on her niece, Mary of The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 23 England Conference: ‘Middle Eastern Crafts: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum, October 11-12, 2018 Mariam Rosser-Owen Curator Middle East, Victoria and Albert Museum Fig. 4 Hungary as Margaret’s successor, ruling Flanders until 1556. One of the highlights of this section was an unknown portrait of Mary painted by Titian and his workshop which had been in storage for decades and was especially restored for this venue (fig. 4). Room Five was dedicated to Catherine, the Habsburg princess who became queen of a global trade empire which stretched from Lisbon to Goa. Showcased here were objects newly identified as once belonging in her collection in Lisbon, from Japanese kinrande porcelain, to carved Ming rhinoceros vessels, to luxury ivories and rock crystals from Ceylon, including a rare raffia mat from West Africa (Kongo). The accompanying scholarly catalogue, in German and in English, textually follows the exhibition’s principal themes (182 pages, numerous illustrations, paperback) (fig. 5) and can be purchased at the KHM Museum shop: https://shop.khm.at/en/shop/ detail/?shop%5BshowItem%5D=100000000032964-214 6-01&cHash=1844f2f894553d0e6d1dfa921a48aae0 24 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter Fig. 5 The V&A’s Middle Eastern Section and Learning Academy organised this first-ever and extremely successful two-day international conference. Thirty-one speakers and moderators came from Afghanistan, Australia, Canada, Dubai, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Spain, the UK and the USA. The full-house stayed through to the bitter end and the discussion kept flowing – there did not seem to be enough time to discuss all the issues. All the papers generated rich discussion, which also said a lot for the quality of the audience members. A keynote lecture from Professor Marcus Milwright, of the University of Victoria in Canada and author of the anthology Islamic Arts and Crafts (Edinburgh University Press, 2017), set the historical scene, emphasising that craftsmanship has been important in Islamic art at all periods (fig. 1), even as far back as ceramics of the Umayyad period (661-750). The main focus of his presentation was the Dictionary of Damascene Crafts, an early 20th-century compilation of all the crafts still being practised in the madina of Damascus at that time, and how we can connect these with objects – especially inlaid metalwork – which we find today in public and private collections. For the rest of the conference, papers were presented in thematic panels followed by discussions facilitated by a moderator. The first day was more historical in theme, with the panels focusing on crafts in Egypt and North Africa, from the 19th through to the mid-20th century. In the Egypt panel, moderated by Mohamed El Shahed, we heard from Dina Bakhoum about the restoration of historic wooden minbars by the Comité de conservation des monuments de l’art arabe; and from Seif El Rashidi and Sam Bowker in a joint paper on the Tentmakers of Cairo – the men who still Fig. 1 Conference lead image: Gabriel Lekegian, Coppersmiths at work in a shop in Cairo, late 19th century. ©Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Ph.1382-1896) today practise the craft of cotton appliqué embroidery and whose origins can be traced back to the Mamluk period if not before. In the Maghreb panel, moderated by Moira Vincentelli, we heard from Clara Ilham Álvarez Dopico on attempts by colonial administrators in Tunisia and Algeria to engage with and revive ceramic crafts; Margaret Graves on the historiography and collecting of Moroccan ceramics, via the story of one pot in the Drummond Hay collection in the National Museum of Scotland; and Jessica Gerschultz on the attempts of the École de Tunis to revitalise Tunisian crafts in the 1960s and 1970s: in particular, the case of artist Safia Farhat who, as a woman – and in an interesting parallel to the better-known Anni Albers – was encouraged to dedicate herself to weaving, and who with her atelier of female weavers developed large-scale and three-dimensional tapestries with Modernist designs. When the speakers in this panel took their seats for the discussion, I realised that they were all women, which had not been deliberate, but it was very gratifying to see a healthy balance of genders among the participants! In the afternoon, the groups broke out into concurrent sessions in galleries (fig. 2) with tours of the Jameel Gallery and Jameel Prize 5; a discussion of historic and contemporary approaches to the restoration of wooden minbars in the Jameel Gallery; handling sessions of 19th-century views of Middle Eastern makers in the Word & Image Print Room, revival metalwork from Egypt and Syria (kindly lent for the occasion by Mohammed Khaleeq), and acquisitions of contemporary Middle Eastern ceramics; and an informal discussion of ‘Craft and Sustainability’. Audience members The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 25 Germany News about the Dresden Porcelain Project Christiaan Jörg, Academic supervisor, The Dresden Porcelain Project Cora Würmell, Curator of the Chinese and Japanese Collections of the Porzellansammlung, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden Fig. 2 Omniya Abdel Barr discusses contemporary restoration of historic minbars in Egypt, during one of the breakout sessions. ©Sarah Piram Fig. 3 Participants in the ‘Crafts and Tradition’ panel, during the discussion. ©Mariam Rosser-Owen Fig. 4 Afghan master wood carver, Naseer Yasna, and his translator Hedieh Wojgani, during his presentation. ©Mariam Rosser-Owen dropped in and out of these sessions, which were very successful. In the small room next to the auditorium we displayed informative and promotional books and materials brought by speakers and audience members, including two examples of Kawther al-Saffar’s Dual Metal Bowls, the subject of her presentation on Day 2. The second day was dedicated to contemporary issues and aimed to be more discursive with shorter, focused presentations followed by discussion (fig. 3). The first panel theme was Craft and Tradition, moderated by Camilla Cañellas, which focused on initiatives that aim to keep traditional craft skills alive through training and job opportunities and to help craftsmen find new markets and adapt their work to global challenges. We heard from Turquoise Mountain, an organisation established by the Prince of Wales in 2006, especially about their work in Afghanistan, but also in the new regions where they are bringing their very successful model; Riwaq in Palestine; Art Jameel, which works in Saudi Arabia and Cairo; and a British Council project working with potters in Safi, Morocco. A highlight of this panel was the Afghan master wood carver, Naseer Yasna, who talked movingly about how the opportunity provided by Turquoise Mountain had changed his life (fig. 4). The second panel, led by Ann Shafer, was a roundtable discussion by artists who collaborate closely with artisans, including Eric Van Hove, Sara Ouhaddou, Elias and Yousef Anastas, Amina 26 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter Agueznay, and Kawther al-Saffar. The last panel, moderated by Salma Tuqan, explored New Business Models and ways to solve some of the challenges mentioned earlier in the day. We heard from Lisa BallLechgar discussing Tashkeel and their ‘Made in the UAE’ project; Kendall Robbins of the British Council, talking about their Crafting Futures programme; and Eyen Collective and their project to gather a directory of all the remaining calligraphers practising in Jordan today, a latter-day equivalent to the Dictionary of Damascene Crafts. The conference closed with expert remarks from Tanya Harrod, independent design historian and Jameel Prize 5 judge, who synthesised and highlighted important themes that had emerged. Finally, we hosted a film screening of ‘The Tentmakers of Cairo’ (2015), a moving film made by Australian film-maker Kim Beamish, charting the lives of the few men who still practise this craft against the backdrop of intense political change during the Arab Spring. The feedback from the conference has been overwhelmingly positive. Several attendees commented that it ‘was one of the best conferences I’ve ever been to’. The combination of historic and contemporary perspectives was very much appreciated. There was even some press coverage, in the form of an article in the UAE online newspaper, The National! The event was audio-recorded and we have uploaded these recordings to the V&A’s Soundcloud site at the following link: https://soundcloud.com/ vamuseum/sets/middle-eastern-crafts. We are currently exploring the possibility of publishing some of the papers. The full conference programme and speakers’ biographies can be downloaded here: https://tinyurl.com/yane5br7 The Dresden Porcelain Project figured prominently at the conference ‘Porcelain circling the Globe International Trading Structures and the East Asia Collection of Augustus the Strong (1670–1733)’ which was held in Dresden on June 13-14, 2018 (fig. 1). The presentations were focused on porcelain trade conducted by individual dealers working outside the dominant trading companies in the 17th and 18th centuries and specifically discussed private networks in and beyond Asia, as well as the emergence of collecting East Asian art in Europe. The importance of Augustus the Strong’s uniquely documented collection with more than 8.000 extant pieces featured as a major topic of discussion, with new insights gleaned over the past four years from the intense research on both the collection itself and its rich archival material. Sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), the conference attracted more than 300 people from Asia, Europe and the United States. As mentioned in the previous OCS Newsletter published in May 2018, all extant pieces in the former royal Palace Collection are currently being catalogued and researched by a large group of international scholars, each with his or her own specific knowledge and interest. At an earlier stage of the project the collection was divided into groups or categories and allocated amongst these experts. These categories included kraak porcelain, miniatures, Batavia brown, Kangxi celadons, Japanese Imari, Arita early enamels, etc.; in all some 95 different groups and sub-groups were assigned. Prior to the conference a two-day workshop was held at the Porzellansammlung, which was generously sponsored by the Volkswagen Foundation. This event brought together almost all the specialists involved in the current cataloguing process of Augustus the Strong’s collection of East Asian porcelain (fig. 2). It was a unique opportunity to share insights and exchange thoughts about these diverse holdings. The Fig. 1 Conference: Circling the Globe ©Porzellansammlung, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Photo: Matthias Rietschel Fig. 2 Workshop Participants (June 2018), ©Porzellansammlung, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Photo: Paul Kuchel discussion focused on topics such as dating or identifying pieces, as well as iconography and inscriptions. Many intriguing questions were answered by the expert group. Yet, some puzzles persist and may not be answered satisfactorily while opinions remain divided on the subject in question. For example: the well-known flattened bottle with a tapering square neck, decorated in underglaze blue with a large Christian cross and a church or pagoda-like building in the background, raised a lively discussion (fig. 3). Some colleagues adhered to the established dating of the object to the Transitional period, of around 1635 to 1645. Other experts would The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 27 Portugal Conference: Reassessing a life: Indian textiles and the Portuguese Empire. Art and Context. Conference in honour of Lotika Varadarajan, Lisbon, October 10-11, 2018 João Teles e Cunha and Maria João Ferreira Researchers at CHAM Centro de Humanidades (Centre for the Humanities, NOVA FCSH-UAc) Fig. 4 Beaker, Chinese porcelain, Kangxi c.1700, ©Porzellansammlung, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, inv. no. PO 7033. Photo: Adrian Sauer Fig. 5 Beaker, Chinese porcelain, 1635-45, ©Groninger Museum, Groningen, inv. no 2017. 0020. Photo: Marten de Leeuw like to see a later dating to the end of the 17th century or even during the very late Kangxi period (16621722), around 1720. In the final catalogue entry this discussion will be reflected and the different opinions mentioned – unless the discovery of more information will settle the question. As an example of new information, one of our Japanese colleagues brought shards from a recently excavated kiln site near Arita and was able to link it with a dish in the Dresden collection, effectively identifying it as part of the production from that specific kiln. But such new insights raise new questions too. For instance, in the former royal collection of Augustus the Strong are two beakers that were clearly made during the Kangxi period, around 1700, decorated in underglaze blue with a pattern of interlaced bands and pendant bundles of leaves and fruits (fig. 4). It is most remarkable that the decoration on these beakers closely copies that of a much earlier Transitional beaker, recently acquired by the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands as an example of one of the first pieces of chine de commande in shape and decoration (fig. 5). The Groninger beaker was obviously shaped after a Dutch metal beaker and dates between 16351645; it probably was a private commission. The question now is: why was this design (and more or less the 28 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter shape as well) revived after more than half a century? It must have been rather old-fashioned by then. But someone must have ordered these Kangxi beakers at the Jingdezhen kilns, hoping to make a profit. What kind of model was used? Another Transitional beaker? A drawing of that beaker? Or did one of the Chinese workshops keep records and had information readily available that could be used again? Until now we have assumed that no such records or documentation were kept by the Chinese producers, but this comparison somehow calls such an opinion into question. Since the conference and the workshop, we have made much progress with the cataloguing and the first important steps towards the digital publication have been undertaken. To date (January 2019) almost half of the catalogue entries are written and have been proofread by the editors and the language editor. Writing these entries can only be done when the cataloguers have access to high-quality photographs, and we are happy to say that thanks to institutional support and many private donations, the huge task of photographing every piece in the collection, including damaged and broken porcelain pieces, has almost come to an end. In particular, we would like to thank the Bei Shan Tang Foundation in Hong Kong, the Ernst von Siemens Foundation in Germany and the government of Saga Prefecture in Japan, as well as the Japan Foundation for their generous financial support. Some of the papers delivered at the conference and a video on the two-day workshop can be accessed by the following link: https://porzellansammlung.skd. museum/forschung/porcelain-circling-the-globe/#c10311 OS TÊXTEIS INDIANOS E O IMPÉRIO PORTUGUÊS ARTE E CONTEXTOS Conferência de Homenagem a Lotika Varadarajan 10out ’18 /MNAA 10h00 / Auditório Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga 11 out’18 /NOVA FCSH 09h30 / Edifício ID, Sala Multiusos 3 Entrada livre sujeita a inscrição prévia em textiles.cham@gmail.com Design: Inês Cristóvão Fig. 3 Bottle, Chinese porcelain, ©Porzellansammlung, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, inv. no. PO 323. Photo: Adrian Sauer The recent death of the Indian polymath, Lotika Varadarajan (1934-2017), left a void difficult to fill given her range, research interests and academic output. The study of textiles was, perhaps, paramount to her, and Lotika Varadarajan’s work was particularly relevant in understanding the connection of the Indian textile industry with foreign markets, especially Portugal and its empire. Over the years, Lotika produced an important corpus of work on this matter, with her appreciation of what was the ‘IndoPortuguese’ textile, either embroidered, weaved or printed. A book on this subject is due to be published which she co-edited with Teresa Pacheco Pereira (former curator of textiles in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga). A group of Portuguese friends and colleagues decided to organise this conference to honour the memory of Lotika Varadarajan (fig. 1) and her contributions to re-establish the scientific and academic ties between Portugal and India after 1974 (particularly Lotika’s role in creating the Seminars of IndoPortuguese History in 1978). It was also an opportunity to recover the theme of Indian textiles for the western market, a subject that has been neglected in Portugal, but which has been copiously studied, debated and exhibited elsewhere in the world in the last decades. For that purpose last October a two-day conference was held in Lisbon under the auspices of the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (MNAA) and CHAM – Centro de Humanidades (Centre for the Humanities, NOVA FCSH-UAc) with the support of FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology), Fundação Oriente and the Institut Français in Portugal. Twenty-four researchers participated. The inaugural session took place at the MNAA (fig. 2), which houses an important set of Indian textiles for the Portuguese market (namely Bengali and Gujarati embroideries) (fig. 3). The papers presented Organização: Textiles Trade and Taste: Portugal and the World (CHAM, FCSH/NOVA-UAç) e MNAA | Coordenação: Maria João Ferreira e João Teles e Cunha Fig. 1 Fig. 2 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 29 Portugal A New Discovery of a ‘Carreira da India’ Carrack at the Mouth of the Tagus River (Lisbon) Jorge Freire Cascais Municipality Augusto Alves Salgado CINAV – Centro de Investigação Naval José António Bettencourt CHAM — Centre for the Humanities - Universidade Nova de Lisboa António Fialho Cascais Municipality Fig. 3 Colcha/Hanging cover, India, Bengal, for the Portuguese market, c.1600-50, Embroidered with silk in chain stich over linen, 255 x 315 cm, MNAA, Inv. 4581 tec in the first day dealt mainly with Art History, either monographic studies (like the study of a 17th century embroidered hanging with battle scenes kept in the MNAA and a kalamkari with the Safarnama theme) or with the technical and material (dye) analysis of some of these textiles held in Portuguese public and private collections, and in foreign museums (namely the Victoria and Albert in London). The meaning of ‘IndoPortuguese’ as a category to catalogue Indian textiles for the Portuguese market, and its revaluation since its inception in the 1950s was another topic discussed. Other papers analysed the circulation and influence of Indian textiles in Portugal and her empire, as well as the development of a homegrown industry in order to produce substitute goods (namely the embroideries of Castelo Branco) and the representation of Indian textiles in other artistic mediums (such as the namban screens). The papers presented on the second day focused more on the historical aspects related with the production, circulation and trade of Indian textiles in the Portuguese empire (especially in Asia, but also for the Atlantic World during the Early Modern Period), taking into account some of its agents (such as the New Christians of Cochin), types of fabrics and their consuming markets, as well as an attempt to create a cloth industry in Goa in 1782. Some papers evaluated and studied other fields of study dear to Lotika 30 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter Varadarajan, namely cowry shells from the Maldives used as coins, and the nautical and boat building techniques (some of which appear represented in 16th and 17th centuries coverlets, quilts and hangings). There was a miscellaneous group of papers dealing with the Siddis population in Portuguese India in 1851, and the historical importance of a mid-19th century Goan journal, the Gabinete Literário das Fontaínhas. Finally, two papers discussed Lotika’s life, work and connection with Portugal, and her passionate belief in fostering the scientific and academic relations between the two countries. This conference was an opportunity to honour the late Lotika Varadarajan and her multifaceted work, to reassess her contribution to the history of Indian textiles, particularly in its connection with Portugal and its empire. In addition, it was also an occasion to highlight this and reenergise the perspective of a multidisciplinary approach linking history with science to boost the study of Indian textiles in Portugal. Attesting to the relevance and innovative aspect of most of the papers presented, the organisers decided to proceed to its publication. Providing that funds are allocated, the papers from the conference will be published. For more information regarding the list of speakers and the titles of the papers, see: http://www.cham.fcsh. unl.pt/ac_actividade.aspx?ActId=793 The entrance of the Tagus river that flows to Lisbon is one of the best natural harbours on the west coast of Portugal. However, the wind changes and the strong tides that are present for several miles out can be treacherous, mainly for sailing ships. So, it is no surprise that this area hosts the greatest record of shipwrecks of all the Portuguese coast. From naus of the carreira da India (India route), VOC Indiamen, British 18th century frigates, to smaller vessels, all at one time or the other, have been lost in this area. One of the most recent was a big trawler that went aground in 1952. Until very recently, researchers have been mainly studying the north shore of the mouth of the Tagus river. In 2015, however, two very well preserved 20th century wrecks attracted the attention of researchers to a sand shoal that lays on the east side of the main channel in Lisbon’s harbour. Early Modern written sources show that at least 23 ships were lost in this area, which measures two miles by one mile. By the natural process of erosion, this area has lost sand during the last several years. For example, almost two meters of sand that had been covering one of the 20th century wrecks in the area has now disappeared in little more than one year. During surveys of this area in early September 2018, a team from the City Hall of Cascais (ProCASC) and from the research centres from the Portuguese Naval Academy (CINAV) and Universidade Nova de Lisboa (CHAM) found the remains of a very large wooden ship. Together with the remains of the hull were bronze guns, Chinese porcelain fragments, peppercorns and cowrie shells. These last items were widely used in the Portuguese trade with Africa and Asia. The wreck spreads over at least 50 meters, on the sandy floor of the sea covered by 10 to 12 meters of water. In 2018, the team was limited to surveying what Fig. 1 Portuguese bronze pedreiros (stone throwers) with the Portuguese coat of arms. Photo Augusto Salgado. was showing from the sandy bottom. However, several aspects of the wreck pointed to a carreira da India nau that had been lost in the first quarter of the 17th century. For instance, the construction techniques of the hull have close parallels to those from the shipwreck of the nau Nossa Senhora dos Mártires studied between 1996 and 2004, which sank in 1606 in a nearby location. As for the nine guns that have been found so far, at least eight are bronze. They not only have the Portuguese royal coat of arms, but some are pedreiros (or stone throwers), a well-known Portuguese gun from the 16th century (fig. 1). Some of the guns, as indicated by their coats of arms, were manufactured after 1560. The eight porcelain fragments, which were visible and recovered from between the timbers and the guns, originally formed part of plates or pots decorated in underglaze cobalt blue (figs. 2 and 3). Their varied decorative styles, including kraak, suggest a dating to the late Wanli (1573-1620) or Tianqi (162127) periods. The carreira da India – the roundtrip voyage for Portuguese merchant ships between Lisbon and Goa – was established in 1500 and ran until the 19th century. The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 31 Fig. 2 A concretion with a fragment of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain dating to the Wanli/Tianqi period. Photo Augusto Salgado. Fig. 3 Another fragment of Chinese blue-and white porcelain, of the kraak type, dating to the Wanli/Tianqi period on another concretion. Photo Augusto Salgado. Every year, the Portuguese Crown sent a fleet of naus (or carracks) to the Indian Ocean to bring back much sought-after spices along with Asian and African goods. Each way, the voyage took from six months to almost a year, always starting in Lisbon, where the fleets were prepared. The number of ships that sailed this route and their size, varied even yearly depending of several factors, including the number of ships that 32 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter were lost. Most of the shipwrecks occurred along the long voyage, but some were lost closer to home along the Portuguese coast. At least five carreira da India naus were lost at the treacherous entrance of the Tagus river. Four of these naus were returning and one was departing. Not only were the ships usually completely lost, but also a great number of people on board died so close to their final destination. In the early 17th century, records mention that several naus sank at the entrance of Lisbon. Such was the case of two naus, the Nossa Senhora da Oliveira and the Nossa Senhora dos Mártires. Both sank on arrival, between Cascais and the fortress of São Julião da Barra in 1605. The first one was studied at the turn of the 20th century and was exhibited in Lisbon at the EXPO98. Although the identification of this newly found shipwreck is not a priority of the team, naturally an initial review was undertaken. Considering the information mentioned above along with the fact that pepper was a Royal monopoly brought from India, the shipwreck is most probably a returning Portuguese nau of the carreira da India. Reviewing the ships returning from India at that time, records show some strong candidates that were lost at the entrance of Lisbon. Two are very doubtful, because not all the records are consistent with how and where they were lost. One was lost in the early 16th century. Therefore, the strongest possibility is that the remains belong to the nau São Francisco Xavier that was lost in 1625 on that shoal at the entrance to the Tagus river. This ship, as with many others that were lost in this area, was salvaged at the time it was lost, but substantial material evidence of the ship still remained in the area. Due to the location of the wreck, archaeological work can only be scheduled during the summer season. Moreover, diving itself is limited to about one hour daily, as it must take place at low tide, due not only to visibility issues, but also to the strong tide currents. Although the Cascais Town Hall project, which has been mapping the Underwater Cultural Heritage remains at the entrance of the Tagus river, has been running for 10 years more systematic archaeological work will start in the summer of 2019. This work, which may last for several years, will be undertaken by members from the above-mentioned team, but will also include members from the Portuguese Ministry of Culture. The Netherlands There are Two Sides to Every Dish Hester J.E.M.C. Valckenier Kips MA Leiden University, the Netherlands Sometimes an object presents itself and at first glance does not seem very extraordinary, but which on closer inspection reveals unexpected and puzzling features. This Chinese rouge-de-fer armorial dish in the Groninger Museum made for export in the early Qing dynasty (1644-1912) is decorated at the centre with a large chrysanthemum head, and a scroll-and-shell border with berry branches in gold on the rim. At the top is a cartouche with rococo style mantling; the monogram and crown were carefully removed at some point after the dish was made (fig. 1). The reverse of the dish is undecorated. The removal of the monogram and crown was clearly intentional because it was done only locally while the surrounding area was kept intact and does not show traces of wear. Furthermore, there is a second identical dish showing the same removal. One possible explanation for the deliberate removal of the armorials is that it was done during the French Revolution, when any symbol or expression of nobility or royalty was considered anti-revolutionary and therefore a risk. The Groninger Museum collection also has a plate from this service, which has retained its armorial (fig. 4). The rim design of both armorial dishes has clear counterparts in various English, Dutch and French armorial services, thus dating it to c.1745-50. The dish originally came from Morbihan in Brittany, a region in north western France. Morbihan is quite close to the harbour of Nantes, the hub of a thriving trade with the Far East during the 18th century. From 1730 Chinese porcelain became more affordable in France because larger quantities were imported. This meant a broader spectrum of people could now order armorial porcelain, including those with commercial or military ties to the Compagnie des Indes, mostly living in Brittany and western France. Surprisingly, the back of the armorial dishes is more noteworthy than their decorated front, because it reveals a striking characteristic: three small barely visible spur or kiln support marks, arranged in a triangle (fig. 2). The Groninger plate, though, lacks such spur marks. As a general rule, ‘spurs’, small Fig. 1 Chinese rouge-de-fer armorial dish, Diameter 32.4 cm, c.1745-50. Groninger Museum, Groningen, The Netherlands, inv. no. 2018-0059 Fig. 2 Reverse of fig. 1, showing three small spur marks arranged in a triangle The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 33 conical stoneware supports, were needed to prevent a piece of glazed porcelain from sagging, warping or sticking to the kiln furniture when fired. After firing, these supports were knocked off, leaving small rough unglazed patches with bits of clay or indentations on the base. However, these marks are a distinct feature of larger pieces of Japanese (export) porcelain of the 17th and 18th centuries, not of Chinese porcelain at this time. Due to the composition of the porcelain clay used in Arita and the more inconsistent firing process, large Japanese pieces had the tendency to ‘sag’ during firing. In China, small, oblong spur marks, usually three in number, had been used on pottery from the Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD). Spur marks are occasionally also found on monochrome glazed wares from as early as the Song dynasty (960-1279 AD). Without spurs the glaze would have run down over the foot ring and fused the object to the kiln floor. Small oval support marks such as those found on the rare and famous Ru wares are said to resemble ‘sesame seeds’. During the Yongzheng (1722-1735) and Qianlong (1736-1795) periods of the Qing dynasty such small marks were sometimes added to enhance an archaic look, reminiscent of the highly valued Song wares. Finally, it has been asserted that spur marks were occasionally added to Chinese imitations of Japanese wares, although an example has yet to be found. On Chinese export porcelain of the 17th and 18th centuries, however, spur marks are very rarely seen which makes this dish quite exceptional. The Groninger Museum collection has another Chinese export plate that is interesting for comparative purposes, also dating to c.1745-50, which has no less than 12 spur marks (figs. 3a and b). This plate is probably modelled either after an early 18th century French or a slightly later English George II (1683-1760) silver example and this explains why the plate lacks a foot ring. When firing it, the glazed base would have certainly stuck to the kiln floor and therefore spurs were needed. However, there is no obvious necessity for spurs on the rougede-fer armorial dish. One possible technical explanation could be the mixture of clay that was used: Chinese porcelain was composed of crushed porcelain stone (petuntse), which was found near Jingdezhen, and kaolin, which came from distant Gaoling. These components are sometimes referred to as the ‘flesh and bone’ of porcelain. Porcelain stone melts, while kaolin does not. 34 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter Fig. 4 Chinese rouge-de-fer armorial plate (detail), Diameter 23 cm, c.1745-50, Groninger Museum, Groningen, The Netherlands, inv. no. 2018-0141. Close-up of the extensive crazing visible all around the rim. Figs. 3a and b Chinese octagonal plate with gadrooned rim, Diameter 19.5 cm, c.1745-50. Groninger Museum, Groningen, The Netherlands, inv. no. 1992-0082. On the reverse 12 spur marks. Thus, kaolin gave the body more strength, but also a whiter colour. In his letters from the early 18th century, the French Jesuit, Father d’Entrecolles, states that equal quantities were used for the finest quality porcelain, but for the more inferior or everyday wares the amount of kaolin was reduced to four parts to six of porcelain stone, the minimum being only one part kaolin to three of petuntse. Perhaps the quantity of the expensive kaolin was also limited in this case, either intentionally or maybe because there was not enough available at the time? An indication that a ‘minimum clay composition’ was used is revealed if we take a closer look at the plate. It shows extensive crazing, which is rather unusual for Chinese porcelain (fig. 4). Petuntse is usually made of feldspathic rocks, while kaolin is a layered silica mineral. As a general rule, to avoid crazing the potter should increase the amount of silica in the body, while decreasing the amount of feldspar. With lower-quality clay mixtures, the opposite might happen and this may have been the case here. It is also possible that there were firing issues, hence the grey cast. Taking all this into consideration, perhaps the three small spurs were added to support the larger dishes, to ensure sagging would not occur. Nowadays, spur marks are generally presumed to not exist on Chinese export porcelain since shipments to the West were initiated in the 16th century and are also not always easy to recognise as such, which makes them a rare find. Only by being more aware of the possibility of their existence, may more examples come to light, which can further clarify this puzzling phenomenon. In any case, these export dishes have made a case in point: there are indeed two sides to every dish! The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 35 News from the Middle East United Arab Emirates Chinese and Far Eastern Ceramic Shards at the Ras Al Khaimah Museum Stephen Scalet is based in the United Arab Emirates as an advisor to the Emirates National Oil Company and independently carries out research into Sino-Arab trade history. The fortified gates and massive perimeter walls of the Museum of Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates, remain as a legacy of when the building served (until the 1960s) as the fortress home of the ruling family of the emirate, the Qawasim. Later repurposed as a police headquarters and later still as a jail, the fort was finally converted into a museum in 1987. Today, the museum houses a charming collection of Chinese and Southeast Asian ceramic shards unearthed less than a mile away (fig. 1). In 1968, archaeologist Beatrice de Cardi identified an ancient settlement on a coastal plain by an inshore bay to the northeast of the city of Ras Al Khaimah. Known as Julfar, the settlement was involved in maritime trade with the Far East from the 14th to the 17th centuries, being described in 1503 as a flourishing coastal city ‘abounding in everything’ by the Italian traveler Ludovico di Varthema. In common with other medieval ports such as Zanzibar, Goa and Hormuz, the emergence of Julfar as a center of commerce was likely aided by the increasing importance Fig. 1 Ras Al Khaimah National Museum, United Arab Emirates. 36 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter of the sea routes to India and China that accompanied the decline of the fabled east-west overland trading routes during the Xixia kingdom (1038-1227) and later Mongol empire. Following de Cardi’s surveys, excavations led by John Hansman in 1977 and 1978 collected and unearthed large quantities of ceramic fragments and shards. Since then, several other international archaeological excavations have contributed to the museum’s corpus of ceramic wares manufactured in China, Vietnam and Thailand. The ceramic holdings are housed in a series of interconnected rooms surrounding the courtyard of the museum. The Chinese ceramic corpus comprises celadons, glazed stoneware and blue-and-white porcelain, with the latter accounting for the largest portion. Drawn from a total of over one thousand shards of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain, the shards on display consist mainly of fragments of shallow dishes, small bowls and cups decorated with human figures, horses, snakes, birds, clouds, vegetal scrolls, lotus petals and other motifs. Examples with inscriptions appear to be rarer, although one display case features a group of bases bearing various inscriptions or reign marks (fig. 2), including one small bowl with the inscription ‘Allah’ in pseudo-Arabic. While the earliest blue-and-white shard appears to be a fragment of a meiping vase exhibiting decoration characteristic of the late Yuan period, the great majority of Julfar blue-and-white shards are datable from about the Jiajing period (1522–66) to the middle of the 17th century, during which time the Portuguese greatly expanded sea-trade between China and the Middle East. This large and almost complete late Ming kraak dish (fig. 3) is decorated with a continuous rim border depicting boats, pagodas and trees, and a scene of ducks by a lotus pond in the centre. Although this dish is typical of export pieces produced in large quantities in the late 16th or early 17th centuries, the presence of numerous mending holes suggests it must have been among the valued possessions of its Julfari owners. Numerous shards of kraak porcelain have been collected and excavated in and around the Julfar site, with most of the shards on display of indifferent quality. In many cases, the kraak shards exhibit the greyish hue typical of later blue-and-white export porcelain decorated using Chinese cobalt, rather than the brighter ‘Mohammedan blue’ Persian type. Several large fragments of Chinese celadon dishes and deep bowls (fig. 4) from the late Yuan to early Ming dynasties are also on display, many of which have been identified as originating from the Longquan kilns in the Zhejiang area. Dragon motifs are visible on a few shards, as are impressed floral designs, vertical fluting and simple patterned decorations. Also of interest are the small number of celadon shards from Southeast Asia on display, especially as few such shards have been found to date in the Middle East. The sea-green to olive-green fragments of shallow bowls and dishes dating from the 15th and 16th centuries have been categorized as manufactured in Vietnam and Thailand (fig. 5). Finally, the museum’s archeological galleries also display fragments of painted earthenware bowls, jugs and other utilitarian wares produced in Ras Al Khaimah between the 14th and 19th centuries. Known as ‘Julfar wares’, these were produced in large quantities and over time were exported to all parts of the Gulf as well as to Yemen and East Africa. A casual comparison of the forms and decorations of Julfar wares with those of Chinese and Southeast Asian manufacture leaves one with the impression that the exotic and sought after imports exerted a substantial influence on the production of indigenous wares. Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 2 Fragments of 16th and 17th century blue-and-white porcelain bases bearing inscriptions or reign marks. Ras Al Khaimah National Museum. Fig. 3 Kraak dish, Late Ming dynasty. Ras Al Khaimah National Museum. Fig. 4 Yuan and early Ming celadon shards. Ras Al Khaimah National Museum. Fig. 5 Celadon shards from Vietnam and Thailand. Ras Al Khaimah National Museum. Fig. 5 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 37 Bahrain An exceptional Koryo green glazed stoneware discovered from the Qal’at al-Bahrain site Bing Zhao Senior Scientist, CNRS UMR 8155 CRCAO, Paris, France The kingdom of Bahrain comprises a total of some thirty islands and islets, all located half-way between the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (the Shatt al-‘Arab) and the Straits of Hormuz. This position is a strategic one in the Gulf region, at the crossroads of maritime routes linking the Near East with the Indian Subcontinent, within an international network connecting Asia, Africa and Europe. The most important archaeological site in Bahrain is that of Qal’at al-Bahrain, a large tell of 17.5 hectares or about 43 acres. Qal’at al-Bahrain is located on the island’s northern coast, to the west of the large bay that separates the site from Manama, the current capital. The bay has been partly filled and occupied by the new modern district of Seef. Until recent times, the island’s entire northern coast was bordered with areas of palm tree groves and vegetable gardens, which are now much reduced. This area is particularly important historically because it contains 8 metres of archaeological stratigraphy. Its occupation began around 2250 BCE and lasted with almost no interruption until the first centuries of the Christian era, a period which was followed by a hiatus of several centuries until the site saw a substantial Islamic period occupation. During pre-Islamic phases, the site of Qal’at al-Bahrain was known as the island’s capital and main port. During the Islamic period, this location, enclosed by a coral reef, was one of the rare harbours of Bahrain’s northern coast and was the probable unloading point of Far Eastern imports to the island. Since 1976, French and Bahraini archaeological teams have excavated a total of some 2000 shards of East Asian ceramics at the Qal’at al-Bahrain port site. Respectively, they have retrieved archeological material from the end of the 13th to the early 15th centuries from the Islamic layers of the coastal fort ruins; from the early 15th to early 17th centuries from the so-called Hormuzi-Portuguese fortress ruins; and from the 14th to 15th centuries from the central area of the village ruins (fig. 1). An exceptional bowl fragment in green glazed stoneware of the Korean Koryo dynasty 38 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter Fig. 1 General view of the port site of Qal’at al-Bahrain. Photograph by Pierre Lombard. (918-1392) has been recovered from the HormuziPortuguese fort. This fragment bears a fine white inlaid decoration and is a typical of the 13th-14th centuries. The shard is too small to reconstruct its complete original form and dimensions. Nevertheless, its thickness clearly suggests a large piece: the diameter of the mouth exceeding 20 cm (fig. 2). It is important to note that this Qal’at al Bahrain find constitutes thus far the sole archaeological evidence of Koryo dynasty ceramics imported into the Muslim world. According to the stratigraphic information, the Hormuzi fort was built in places on the top layers of the site, which corresponds to phase VIII (300 BC- 150 AD), according to the sequences established by Monique Kervran et al. See, Monique Kervran, Fredrik Hierbert and Axelle Rougeulle, Qal’at al-Bahrain. A Trading and Military Outpost, 3rd Millennium B.C. - 17th Century A.D., Brepols, 2005, p. 352. It was built both with the remains of the Coastal Fort (which was reoccupied by the Salgharid Atabak of Fars) and the remains of the 14th-early 15th century village. A quantity of 13th-14th century Chinese ceramic shards, in particular Longquan-type green glazed stoneware, have been excavated from the Hormuzi-Portuguese fort. Beginning in the first half of the 12th century, sophisticated Korean green glazed stonewares had Fig. 2 Fragment of a Koryo green glazed stoneware bowl with inlaid decoration, brownish paste, dark olive green glaze, early 15th century. Photograph by Bing Zhao. Fig. 3 Fragment of a blue-and-white dish with flat, foliated rim, Jingdezhen, early 15th century, excavated from the Qal’at al-Bahrain site. Photograph by Bing Zhao. been imported into China and Japan as highly prized goods. They appear to have been particularly appreciated at the imperial court and by wealthy families in China, suggested by the fact that quite a number of Koryo green glazed stonewares with inlaid decoration have been found in 13th-14th century tombs. Even today, the imports of Korean ceramics to the Muslim world is very scarce. Only two other green glazed Korean stoneware shards from the Ardebil Shrine in Iran (now in the Archaeological Museum of Tehran) have been recently identified. How should these isolated finds be interpreted? Were they a normal trade commodity? Might they just suggest a limited exchange, for example as part of diplomatic presents or tribute goods? The high quality of some exceptional Chinese pieces in green glazed stoneware and in blueand-white porcelain excavated from the Qal’at al-Bahrain site comes to support this latter hypothesis (fig. 3). The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 39 News from the Americas Mexico The Baja California Shipwreck: In memory of Edward Von der Porten Dr. Roberto Junco Subdirección de Arqueología Subacuática INAH, Mexico Fig. 1 Edward walking the wreck site of a Manila Galleon in Baja California, Mexico, with his famous bucket full of blue-and-white porcelain collected that day. (SAS-INAH) There was a time when scholars and archaeologists used to call Zhangzhou wares ‘Swatow’. That is when I met Edward Von der Porten, a teacher and mentor (fig. 1). He was a man in love with Chinese blue-andwhite porcelain and a scholar dedicated to reconstructing the puzzle of export ceramics from China to the Americas, among many topics. I was then fresh out of school and porcelain had become my favorite archaeological material. I had dedicated my thesis to uncovering the reason why dozens of Ming dynasty shards had been found on the north coast of Guerrero, Mexico. The day I met Edward, I had been designated by INAH (National Institute of Anthropology and 40 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter History in Mexico) to work with him as the co-director of the early Manila galleon shipwreck project in Baja California. I felt intimidated by his deep knowledge of the ceramics from this project, that he loved so much. For many years we worked together and with time I came to appreciate Edward as a scholar and even more as a man. Right from the start, I began to learn from him, since Edward had a vocation for sharing his knowledge. In fact, he was a teacher for more than 30 years at the Santa Rosa Junior College, near San Francisco, California. During the many years of work dedicated to our archaeological project in Baja California, the team enjoyed listening to Edward’s interest in the historical aspects of Sir Francis Drake’s passage along the coast of California during the late 16th century. Edward was a member of the Drake Navigators Guild, a group devoted to the study of the mariner and his 1579 landing at Point Reyes, California. Many times, I often joked with Edward about whether Drake was indeed a great sailor or — from the Spanish perspective — a vile pirate. Edward would narrate how Drake had left behind part of the cargo — including a stash of porcelain — before sailing back to England. Archaeologists digging at Indian sites in Point Reyes had found porcelain shards, which they attributed to the cargo of the 1595 shipwreck of the Spanish galleon San Agustín, captained by Sebastián Cermeño. It had wrecked in the same area within some 20 years of Drake’s landing. Edward wanted to understand which shards belonged to which event and his study concluded that it was possible to identify the shards from the Cermeño shipwreck and those left behind by Drake. He developed a chronology working closely with Clarence Shangraw, a scholar from the San Francisco Asian Art Museum. For years they studied the collection from California, managing to establish a style sequence for a type of Chinese export porcelain, known as kraak, through several known datable shipwrecks. He compiled this information into a list that helped him date the ceramics in Baja California, as well as those from California. In 1999 Edward and his colleagues organized the first expedition to the wreck site of a Manila galleon in Baja California, Mexico (fig 2). From there, Edward and INAH conducted annual expeditions to record the objects spread through 11 kilometers of sand dunes by the sea (fig. 3). He documented each of almost 2,000 pieces carefully: weighing, taking dimensions, drawing, and photographing. Overall, he identified 28 different types of porcelain and concluded from his analysis of kraak porcelain that they belonged to the late-1570s. A digital catalogue is on the way, with photographs and a detailed analysis of the collection to be published soon by INAH. Besides our work together on the dunes, our paths crossed many times at conferences and academic events. I recall a meeting at the Harvard-Yenching Institute, where we had the opportunity of exchanging views on the identity of the Manila galleon wreck. Fig. 2 Edward on the field sharing his knowledge with the archaeologists of INAH. (SAS-INAH) Fig. 3 Porcelain Bowl recovered at the Manila Galleon site, Baja California (SAS-INAH) Edward was to the end a very strong and dedicated man. He was always a gentleman and a source of knowledge. In a way, he was his own chapter in the study of Chinese export porcelain. His example and his research will remain with us. His role as a teacher and a mentor was, as all who met him can agree, a blessing. For the Baja California shipwreck research project, see Roberto Junco and Edward Von der Porten, n.d. (eds.), Porcelains from the Manila Galleon in Baja California, Mexico (Porcelanas del Galeón de Manila en Baja California, Mexico), Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropológia e Historia, forthcoming [in Spanish and English] first on the internet and later in print. The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 41 Peru Fig. 3 Shards of Chinese porcelain bowls and cups (most of them kraak) with bird motifs. The Discovery of Chinese porcelain shards in the Casa Bodega y Quadra, Lima Fig. 4 Kraak plate and bowl shards with deer designs. Lic. Miguel Fhon Bazán Director of the Museo de Sitio Bodega y Quadra, Municipalidad Metropolitana de Lima, mfhonb@gmail.com In 2005, the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima, as part of the Urban Renewal Program, evaluated several buildings in Lima’s historic city centre in a block called ‘Del Rastro y la Soledad’. This block is located between Ancash and Lampa streets and includes a number of historic homes: Casa del Rastro, Casa Mendoza, Casa del Balcón Ecléctico, Casa de las Trece Puertas, and finally Casa Bodega y Quadra. It is at this last property where an important archaeological site was discovered pertaining to the 17th and 18th centuries. The Municipal Urban Renewal Program allowed for the relocation of several families who lived in these abandoned houses, which were at the time in very precarious conditions, to a new space built for the purpose called La Muralla House Complex, leaving the historical houses free for recuperation. During the course of this work, a series of arches dating to the viceregal period were discovered in the Casa Bodega y Quadra, leading to the development of an archaeological intervention (fig. 1). The first archaeological work conducted at this house took place in 2005 and 2006 under the direction of archaeologist Daniel Guerrero. The excavations uncovered architectural structures at a depth of four meters, as well as a diversity of material culture. At this stage of intervention, the excavations were concentrated in the southern part of the house lot, uncovering a series of arches, paved floors, walls, and archaeological material corresponding to the 17th and 18th centuries. Later, in 2010, the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima initiated the second stage of archaeological research at the Casa Bodega y Quadra, this time under the direction of archaeologist Miguel Fhon. These excavations were focused on the northern sector of the house lot. In this stage, a portion of the 17th-century Tajamar Wall was discovered, as well as a passage between the Tajamar and the house (heading towards the Rímac River), an arch, and the wall forming the northern limit of the house. Similarly, excavations in 42 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 1 Viceregal-period structures at the site of the Casa Bodega y Quadra exposed after archaeological research. Fig. 2 Stratum of one of the walls of fill at the house with fragments of Chinese porcelain. the central area of the site were completed in order to define the architectural spaces that had not yet been delimited and excavated in the first stage, exposing the cobblestones and access points to each of these rooms. In addition to the architectural findings, it is worth highlighting the discovery of a variety of objects found during archaeological excavations, including ceramic vessels of different forms and styles, many of which were majolicas of the style produced in Panama. Botijas (a common type of Iberian earthenware amphorae) were also present in a high proportion among the findings, as well as a type of green leadglazed utilitarian ceramic commonly taking the form of vases, pitchers, deep bowls, and basins. However, what drew the most attention were shards of Chinese porcelain produced during the Ming dynasty. Chinese porcelain was first encountered at the Casa Bodega y Quadra during Guerrero’s first stage of research. Subsequently, the archaeological work carried out in the second stage in 2010 allowed for more complete exploration of its presence at the property. Fragments of Chinese porcelain remained present in most of the 17th and 18th century fill contexts in the areas excavated in the northern sector of the house and in the adjoining area of the Tajamar passage – although the porcelain occurred in smaller proportions compared with the rest of the archaeological material. In both the interior spaces of the house and the Tajamar passage, shards of Chinese porcelain were recovered in various stratigraphic layers (fig. 2). The study of ceramic shards recovered from the Casa Bodega y Quadra made it possible to identify some of the preferences regarding the type of Chinese porcelain forms most used in viceregal Lima. In particular, the study defined the use of plates, bowls of various sizes and depths, and cups with everted rims, both short and tall, among other types. The majority of the fragments of Chinese porcelain were found to be decorated with zoomorphic, and in particular, bird designs, such pheasant, phoenix, and crane (fig. 3). Deer were also represented in large numbers The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 43 Fig. 5 Chinese porcelain plate and bowl shards with floral motifs (most of them kraak). Fig. 6 Chinese porcelain bowl fragments and cup bases with Chinese calligraphy. The United States The Arts of Korea gallery, the Brooklyn Museum Joan Cummins Lisa and Bernard Selz Senior Curator of Asian Art (fig. 4). The floral designs standout for the representation of the lotus flower and chrysanthemum, among others (fig. 5). The anthropomorphic motifs represent Chinese figures in different activities as well as some gods of the Chinese pantheon. Chinese calligraphy is also depicted on several of these porcelain fragments, covering a large part of the sides of the original pieces. Marks and inscriptions of four to six characters are seen in the bases of some bowls and cups (fig. 6). Chinese porcelain would have reached the Viceroyalty of Peru mostly through New Spain (presentday Mexico), following the commercial routes of the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade. Beginning in 1579, the market in Acapulco offered Chinese products and the merchants of Lima travelled to the port to acquire stock to bring back to the Peruvian viceregal capital. This trans-Pacific trade reached its peak in the 17th century. 44 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter The Casa Bodega y Quadra is important not only because of the discovery of diverse fragments of Chinese porcelain, but also because it was the butcher’s market of the Ciudad de los Reyes (‘City of Kings’ – the early moniker for the city of Lima). The space was later converted for domestic use and was occupied by the Cueva family during the 17th century. After which, the house was occupied by the Altolaguirre family, and by the middle of the 18th century, the Bodega y Quadra family. The family’s patriarch, don Tomás de la Bodega y Quadra, twice held the position of Prior of the Lima Consulate, and his son, Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, was a mariner and explorer of the Royal Spanish Armada, earning notoriety for his navigation and exploration of the West Coast of North America and for being among the first of European descent to reach Vancouver Island. For these reasons the Casa Bodega y Quadra constitutes one of the most important archaeological finds of recent years for the viceregal and republican eras of the city of Lima. The Brooklyn Museum opened its newly refurbished gallery for the Arts of Korea in September 2017. The gallery is roughly four times the size of the previous space allotted to Korean art at the Museum, and it features more than 80 objects representing 1,700 years of Korean history. The museum has been engaged in concerted collecting of Korean art since 1913, when its first Curator of Ethnography, Stewart Culin, traveled to Seoul. His purchases for the Museum (which he continued upon his return to New York) consisted primarily of costume elements and the accoutrements of elite Korean homes, all of it of relatively recent vintage, but now highly valued by scholars of Joseon dynasty (1392-1897) material culture. Interest in Korean art continued at the Museum, with a major gift of an exquisite celadon ewer in 1956 (fig. 1), and then through the tenure of Robert Moes, a curator who had come to an appreciation of Korean art through his study of Japanese mingei (folk art). Under Moes, the museum opened a permanent gallery for Korean art in 1977, the first such dedicated space in the continental United States. Moes also curated an exhibition of the collection in 1987. He encouraged New Yorkers to collect Korean art and their donations in the 1980s bolstered the collection considerably so the holdings now number roughly 700 objects. The Brooklyn collection is broad and diverse, but at its core is a singular masterpiece, a 12th-century, Goryeo dynasty (918-1392) wine vessel in the shape of a lotus bud (fig. 1). Donated to the Museum by a descendant of Horace and Lillias Underwood, who had spent decades in Korea as missionaries (Mr. Underwood founded Seoul’s Yonsei University), this celadon-glazed ewer employs two different methods of surface decoration: carving and slip-painting. A charming and extremely unusual detail is the presence of two white-clay elements adhered to the lid and handle, representing a moth and the cocoon from which it has just emerged. This elegant piece, with its nearly-blue celadon glaze and delicate sculpting, is of National Treasure quality. Fig. 1 Ewer in the Shape of a Lotus, Goryeo dynasty (918-1392), first half of 12th century. 25.1 x 24.1 x 14 cm. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. Darwin R. James III, 56.138.1a-b Other important ceramics in the collection include a flattened round bottle with sgraffito decoration, a fine example of 15th century Buncheong ware (fig. 3). With its use of white slip on gray stoneware under celadon glaze, this piece belongs to a revival of sorts that took place in the early Joseon dynasty, but unlike the refined Goryeo dynasty celadons that it seems to emulate, the Buncheong piece has loosely drawn decorations and a slightly lopsided form. These features are in keeping with a rising taste for humility, and disdain for preciousness, that accompanied Korea’s embrace of Neo-Confucianism at the time. Dating just slightly later is a rare, early set of porcelain epitaph plaques dedicated to the celebrated poet Park Eun (1479-1504) (fig. 2). The recording of biographical information on ceramic plaques is a quintessentially Korean invention: the plaques were buried with their human subject and served as a durable record of his contributions. Most extant epitaph plaques are much later in date, written in cobalt on more refined porcelain ‘pages’. This set dates to a The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 45 The United States Exhibition: Japan’s Global Baroque, 1550–1650, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, February 23–May 21, 2018 Denise Leidy Ruth and Bruce Dayton Curator of Asian Art, Yale University Art Gallery Fig. 2 Epitaph Plaques for the Poet Park Eun, Joseon dynasty (1392-1910), c.1504. 23.5 x 17.8 x 2.9 cm. Brooklyn Museum, Carroll Family Collection, 2017.29.27–.40 Fig. 3 Bottle, Joseon period (1392-1910), mid-late 15th century. 22 x 17.8 cm. Brooklyn Museum, Ella C. Woodward Memorial Fund, 75.61 very early period when cobalt was too expensive for this purpose, so it is written in underglaze iron brown pigment. It is one of four such sets, all in underglaze iron, that were donated to the museum in 2017. In addition to the wealth of historical information contained within the texts of these epitaphs, they are of immense interest to ceramic historians as rare examples of dated (or dateable) porcelain. The Brooklyn Museum is currently working with the National Museum of Korea to sample and analyze the materials used in creating the pieces, in hopes that they can serve as milestones for the attribution of other ceramics. 46 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter Once a local source of cobalt had been secured in the late 15th century, the production of blue-andwhite porcelain became more widespread in Korea. Porcelain wares of various shapes were made for palace décor and to a lesser extent for upper-class table settings, but some of the most popular porcelain objects in the later Joseon dynasty were water-droppers. These small vessels could assume many forms and were often one of the only expressions of luxury and whimsy in the highly-restrained environs of a Confucian scholar’s study. The Brooklyn Museum houses a diverse collection of water-droppers, including this very fine example with both cobalt blue and (unusually successful) copper red decoration (fig. 4, illustrated on the front cover). The ceramics illustrated here offer only a small taste of the treasures on display in the Arts of Korea gallery at the Brooklyn Museum. Fine screen and scroll paintings are shown on a rotating basis, as are a group of important costumes and furnishings. The Museum houses a spectacular pair of 6th-century gold earrings from the Silla kingdom (668-935 CE) and fine examples of metalwork from the Goryeo dynasty. In recent years, the Museum has begun to collect and display works by Korean artists of the 20th and 21st centuries: an exhibition of recent work by Kwang Young Chun (b. 1944), accompanied by a group of paper collages by Lee Ungno (1904-1989) will be on view through July 2019. Brooklyn’s Arts of Korea gallery was supported by three generous grants from the National Museum of Korea. It is only the first in a series of newly renovated galleries dedicated to Asian art that will be rolled out in the coming years. The Museum will unveil its new galleries for Arts of China and Arts of Japan in October 2019. Fig. 1 Arrival of the Europeans. Japan, Edo period (1615–1868), early 17th century. One of a pair of six-panel folding screens: ink, colour, gold, and gold leaf on paper. Each screen, 105 x 244 x 16.5 cm. Mr. and Mrs. Robert Feinberg Collection On view at the Yale University Art Gallery during the spring semester 2018 a small exhibition, entitled Japan’s Global Baroque, 1550 – 1650, was integral to a larger university project exploring the rise of modernization and globalization from an East Asian, largely Japanese, perspective. In addition to the exhibition, this collaborative project included undergraduate and graduate classes, as well as an international symposium. The latter half of the 16th century saw the emergence of an extraordinarily multi-faceted and imaginative visual and material culture in Japan. A chance landing by Portuguese sailors in 1543 spurred Japanese participation in the burgeoning exchanges of textiles, ceramics, lacquers, and other luxuries that underlie the escalation of trade between South, Southeast, East Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Both works of art from the Asian Department at the Gallery, and carefully selected loans from American museums and private collectors featured in this exhibition, which explored the introduction of foreign goods to Japan, and adroit Japanese responses to these objects. The term namban (a name for foreigners coming across Japan’s southern seas, specifically the Iberians) is often used to classify paintings and other works made in Japan in response to the arrival of foreigners and international luxuries. A pair of six-panel folding screens, depicting a Portuguese ship arriving in Japan, illustrate the type of painting that is commonly classified as namban and served as the starting point for many of the themes in this exhibition. The left screen of the pair features the arrival of a Portuguese ship, the right shows Europeans, and their exotic goods, walking through the streets of Nagasaki (fig. 1). A multi-ethnic crew, relaxing, and snacking from lacquer tables on the deck, wear clothing made from a range of textiles, some Indian and some Chinese. A smaller boat brings the crew and the cargo, including Chinese and Southeast Asian ceramics, and Chinese and Ryukyuan lacquer, to the shore where they are supervised by seated figures, including Catholic clergy. The period presented in this exhibition is also dubbed ‘Japan’s Christian century’ as a result of the The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 47 Fig. 2 Water jar with landscape and horses. China, Ming dynasty (1368 – 1644), Chongzhen period (1627–1664), 17th century. Porcelain painted with cobalt blue under a transparent glaze (Jingdezhen ware for Japanese market), diameter: 20.9 cm. Collection of Peggy and Richard M. Danziger prominence of clergy in Asia at the time. Textiles and ceramics were the most widely traded goods in this seminal period, and arguably, those that also had the most profound and long-lasting impact in Japan and around the world. A water jar (fig. 2), painted with a landscape scene on the cover and cavorting horses on the body, commissioned from Jingdezhen in China for use in the tea ceremony, illustrates the type of blue-and-white Chinese porcelain that spurred, with help from kidnapped Korean potters, the development of Japanese porcelain in the early 17th century. While never handled by guests, containers for discarding the water used to make tea were among the first vessels to be shown in a tea ceremony and provided an aesthetic anchor for the other small utensils such as tea bowls. Some of the tea bowls used in Japan during this seminal period were imported from China, others from Korea, and still others made at kilns in Japan. Many were wrapped 48 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter in fragments of Indian and/or Persian textiles underscoring both their value and their exoticness. A serving dish with a bail handle (fig. 3) illustrates a more subtle Japanese response to imported goods. Used to hold food during a meal preceding the tea ceremony, the dish is an example of Oribe ware produced in the Mino kilns in Kyushu between 1590 and 1635 and named after the influential tea master Furuta Oribe (1544 -1615) famed for changing the style of the tea ceremony and for his choice of ceramics with bold shapes and powerful decorations. While the palette used in Oribe wares, in particular the combination of a white slip and a dark green glaze, has generally been attributed to this master, the decoration of Oribe wares may also show the influence of imported Chinese and Southeast Asian ceramics that used white slips, dark green glazes, and iron brown pigment. The flourishing Japanese lacquer tradition also responded to global exchanges by producing a range of liturgical items such as lecterns and portable shrines or oratories, some of which held European paintings of the Madonna and Child, as well as other subjects for both domestic use and trade. A fall-front cabinet (fig. 4), a type of object first produced in Japan in the third quarter of the 16th century, is based on the form of a European writing desk. Unlike contemporaneous lacquer exclusively for domestic use, which features bold overall patterns, the surface of this box is divided into multiple sections, as is typical of namban lacquer. Moreover, the prevalence of mother-of-pearl in the rendering of the of the flowers and birds that fill the surface reflects the use of this material in Indian lacquers produced at the same time, while the geometric patterns that fill the borders echo those found on the widely dispersed Indian textiles that contributed to the redefinition of global visual culture in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Fig. 3 Serving dish with bail handle. Japan, Momoyama period (1573–1615), late 16th century. Stoneware painted with iron brown on slip under glaze, with overlay of green glaze, height: 14 cm. The Asia Society, the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection (1979.226) Fig. 4 Fall-Front cabinet with flowers and birds. Japan, Momoyama period (1573–1615), late 16th century. Cypress with black lacquer, sprinkled gold lacquer, inlaid mother-ofpearl and bronze fittings, height: 30.9 cm. The Yale University Art Gallery, Purchased with a gift from the Japan Foundation Endowment of the Council on East Asian Studies and with the Leonard C. Hanna, Jr., Class of 1913, Fund (2017.61.1a-b) The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 49 The United States Symposium: The Way of the Vessel, The Art Institute of Chicago, May 3-5, 2018 Colin MacKenzie Curator, Chinese Art, The Art Institute of Chicago Mirroring China’s Past: Emperors, Scholars, and Their Bronzes held at the Art Institute of Chicago between February and May, 2018 (see last year’s Newsletter, Number 26, May 2018, pp. 38-9) was the first major exhibition to explore the central role of bronze vessels and bells over the historical span of Chinese culture. The Way of the Vessel symposium held at the Art Institute in conjunction with the exhibition likewise explored bronzes from a much wider perspective than has been attempted in past symposia. Here, the sixteen presentations (some revised versions of previously published papers) ranged widely in topic and methodology from Shang symbolism to the photography of bronzes in the early 20th century; from Han bells to the so-called Xuande bronze incense burners. The symposium was headlined by a keynote speech by Martin J. Powers entitled ‘The Myriad Afterlives of Chinese Bronzes’ that provided a conceptual framework for the following papers (fig. 1). Powers cogently argued that the roles of bronzes in Song and postSong dynasties were the expression of an historical awareness of an idealized past that was in many respects analogous with the use of classical motifs in the post-Renaissance West. Papers on early Chinese bronzework included Sarah Allan’s paper exploring the rise of bronze casting. Focusing on a group of tombs at Yanshi Erlitou, Allan plausibly argued that their occupants were interlocutors with the ancestors and that the objects buried with them, including bronze plaques, bronze bells, and jue vessels were all ritual paraphernalia used to summon the spirits. Han Ding’s paper on Shang dynasty (c.1550-1045 BCE) motifs emphasized the need to interpret bronze motifs in their various contexts — their position on the vessel, the function of the vessel, and its archaeological context. A weakness of his paper was that he seemed unaware of Western scholarship on many of the issues he discussed. Other papers on Shang included Su Rongyu’s exhaustive study of the casting-on of knobs on lids; a paper by Liu Yang argued 50 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter that the famous owl zun in the Pillsbury collection in the Minneapolis Institute of Art was created in a southern foundry. Eugene Wang’s provocative paper argued that the owl and tiger gong (formerly termed guang) were an expression of a symbolic system that referenced philosophic ideas that only appear in texts some 500 years later. Wang’s methodology was criticized by some in the audience, but Wang must be commended, at least, for pointing out that the juxtaposition of these two creatures on the gong is unlikely to have been arbitrary. Guolong Lai’s paper addressed two gui tureens in The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. One is the famous Shi Song gui, which was published by William Watson as a genuine Western Zhou bronze, but thermoluminescence tests on the handles indicate that it is a modern forgery. Lai suggests that the vessel itself could be genuine and that fake handles were later applied, a conclusion with which this author disagrees. The reluctance of Chinese specialists to question this vessel perhaps reflects the reverence in which it has traditionally been held. The authenticity of the other vessel, the Ju Bo Huan gui, whose authenticity was for long in doubt on the other hand, has been confirmed by thermoluminescence. Wu Hung’s paper explored the challenges of interpreting archaeological material, citing the nine ding from the tomb of King Cuo of Zhongshan (r. 323-309 BCE). This ‘set’ has often been cited as evidence of the King’s appropriation of Zhou symbols, but Wu Hung’s careful analysis of their placement in the tomb chamber reveals, in reality, the tripods did not form a set. The moral of this story is that scholars should use archaeological reports with extreme care and not regard them as the record of indisputable facts. Lothar von Falkenhausen’s paper showed how new archaeological discoveries can fundamentally change our perception of bronze culture. The plentiful discoveries of sets of bells in Western Han dynasty (206 BCE-8 CE) tombs in recent decades have forced him to Fig. 1 Martin J. Powers delivering the keynote speech at The Way of the Vessel symposium held at the Chicago Art Institute. Photo Credit: Xu Baicheng. abandon the view he espoused during the 1990s that bells were unimportant in Han court ritual. Papers on the Song (960-1279) and post-Song dynasties included Wang Tao’s presentation exploring how shifting cultural preferences stimulated new types of ‘antique’ patination applied to both ancient and fake bronzes. Jeffrey Moser’s closely argued presentation explored the rise of antiquarianism in Northern Song as a new type of cultural discourse, emphasizing antique bronzes as intellectual commodities, in contrast to luxuries which were purely objects of economic exchange. But Moser also emphasizes that the survival of ancient bronzes was always under threat from the competing economic value of raw bronze, which could and did result in ancient bronzes being melted down. Ultimately, the cultural value of bronze vessels outpaced economic value of bronze and indeed stimulated reproductions, both the faithful copies commissioned by Huizong and freer copies created during Song-Yuan made in private workshops, explored in Pengliang Lu’s paper. Bruce Rusk’s presentation focused on a different category of antiquarianism — the so-called Xuande bronze incense burners. In this case the archaism evoked not a distant past, but the relatively recent golden era of the Ming dynasty. Rusk argued that the craze for ‘Xuande’ censers arose in the context of the late Ming interest in exotica and that the censers originated as scholar’s objects and then came to be misrepresented as court objects. Papers on Qing dynasty antiquarianism included Francois Louis’s fascinating exploration of how a renewed interest in a 10th century ritual text, the Sanlitu (Illustrations to the Ritual Classics), stimulated the invention of bird-shaped lids for jue in the Qing imperial collection. Nancy Berliner explored the history of bapo (‘eight broken things’) depictions of fragmentary motifs including rubbings or imitation rubbings that became popular in the 19th century in the context of antiquarianism and the collecting of rubbings. And a paper by Tingting Xu showed how the new medium of photography was used by Duanfang to publicize his bronze collection, particularly the famous Baoji altar set now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The conference concluded with a paper by Tai Xiangzhou. Known primarily as an innovative exponent of ink landscape, Tai has also been painting bronze vessels for a few years. Tai’s paper was an explanation of his approach to this project, in particular how he tried to understand the thinking of a Shang bronze designer and to get away from the traditional depictions of bronzes in Song and post-Song China as literati ‘playthings’. A fitting way to end an exceptionally stimulating symposium. The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 51 News from the Web China Art Research Network Dr Minna Törmä Lecturer, University of Glasgow; Principal Investigator, China Art Research Network (CARN) China Art Research Network (CARN) was established in 2016 with a two-year Arts and Humanities Research Network award from the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE). This funding allowed CARN to organise two colloquia and to establish a dedicated website on https:// carnuk.wordpress.com and a Newsletter (accessible to CARN members). CARN aims to bring together art historians, archaeologists, museum and art world professionals who specialise in China and who work on object-based research in disciplines including history, technical art history and conservation – so that the coverage of the non-HEI (Higher Education Institutes) sector is more comprehensive and includes not only museum professionals, but also representatives from art business and heritage sectors. The first colloquium ‘Key challenges for Chinese art research in the UK’ was held on 15th September 2016 at Kelvin Hall in Glasgow. The speakers included Yu-ping Luk (Victoria & Albert Museum; currently British Museum), Mungo Campbell (The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery), Yupin Chung (The Burrell), Kevin McLoughlin (currently University Museum and Art Gallery of The University of Hong Kong), Emile de Bruijn (National Trust), Ling Zhu (Lyon & Turnbull Auction House), Yeewan Koon (University of Hong Kong) and Stacey Pierson (SOAS). The second colloquium ‘Object-based research: combining research with art world practice’ took place 6th September 2017 in the Sir Alwyn Williams Building of University of Glasgow. This time papers were delivered by Kate Newnham (Bristol Art Museum and Art Gallery) (fig. 2), Mary Redfern (Chester Beatty Library), Susan Kay-Williams (Royal School of Needlework), Jennifer Melville (National Trust for Scotland), Teresa Canepa (Independent scholar), Rosemary Scott (Christie’s), Ben Janssens (Ben Janssens Oriental Art), Diane Eustace (Private collector) and Andrew Greg (University of Glasgow), who introduced NIRP (National Inventory Research Project). Abstracts of all presentations can be found in Newsletters 1 and 3 respectively. 52 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter Fig. 1 Colloquium 2 participants in a handling session in the new Hunterian facilities at Kelvin Hall: investigating a soapstone Guanyin are (clockwise from left) Minna Törmä, Yeewan Koon, Yue Zhuang, Chih-yin Hsiao and Rose Kerr. The main outcome of the discussions during the colloquia is that it was deemed desirable that CARN would start a project, which would involve the mapping of Chinese objects and collections in the UK. As we all well know, there are extensive and often under-researched collections containing Chinese art in the UK. Object-based research requires access to material (fig. 1). Limited financial resources often result in the decline of collection-based research and external accessibility. The CARN agenda meets the needs identified in the UK Museum Association’s Collections for the Future (2005) statement that ‘too many museum collections are underused – not displayed, published, used for research or even understood by the institutions that care for them’. In the long run, the aim is to work towards a larger research project, which would map Chinese objects and collections around the UK and Ireland. Meanwhile, I am, as the Principal Investigator of CARN, developing a pilot project to test ideas relating to mapping collections in a smaller scale. The Royal Society of Edinburgh graciously allowed us to use a portion of the leftover funds – as we were well within our budget – for European Association for Chinese Studies 2018 Glasgow Conference expenses. The available funds were used to invite Dr Stacey Pierson (SOAS) to deliver one of the two keynote speeches of the conference, which had as its theme ‘China and The World: The Mapping of Exchange’. Dr Pierson’s talk, ‘Fragments of China: Destruction, Location and the Collecting of Chinese Architectural Remains in 19th century Britain’, explored an aspect of collecting which has not received much attention previously, though was fashionable in its time. In addition, the conference had a special section for papers on collecting and collections. The abstracts of the papers are found in CARN Newsletter 5. The EACS conference website is still live, where you can access all the papers of the conference, including much more on Chinese art, please see https://eacs2018.glasgow. ac.uk. We are developing the CARN website and the Newsletter to be a resource for finding out about Chinese objects and collections and for connecting with specialists in the field. Therefore, we have been profiling people – their projects and the collections they care for – in our newsletters. For example, the newsletters have introduced Qin Cao, the new curator in the National Museum of Scotland (Edinburgh) and Yue Zhuang, Senior Lecturer in Chinese at the University of Exeter, who has been ‘disentangling’ a familiar topic and providing new insights to the relationship between Chinese and English garden cultures. The website and the newsletter are available for members to stay informed about events and other matters. Fig. 2 Presentation by Kate Newnham of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery during Colloquium 2. The latest development connected with CARN has been the establishment of the Network of Chinese Collections in Europe (NCCE). In August 2017, the EAAA (European Association of Asian Art and Archaeology) conference held a roundtable entitled ‘Identification, Categorization and Digitization of East Asian Art Objects in local collections of different European countries’ which brought together scholars from different parts of Europe to present aspects of East Asian collections research in their respective countries. After the conference the idea of an European wide network of Chinese collections began to slowly take form. This network is now called Network of Chinese Collections in Europe (NCCE) and in some respects it takes inspiration from CARN. In the first instance, the CARN website acts as a host for NCCE as well, until there is funding in place to develop its own website and events. CARN membership is free, just fill in the membership request form on https://carnuk.wordpress.com/ members/membership-request/ and I will send you the password for the Newsletter. At the start of the 2019, no CARN events are planned; however, the Newsletters will be published twice a year: in the spring and in the autumn. The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 53 News from Collectors and Collections Arita Chocolate Cups in the Jenyns Family Collection Shigeko Tanaka Member of the Oriental Ceramic Society London; Tōyō Tōji Gakkai, Japan; and the Asiatic Society of Japan, where she was Vice-President until 2018. She is engaged in research on Imari porcelain exported to Europe from the 17th century to early 20th century. In the OCS Newsletter of May 2010, I briefly discussed the discovery of a fragment of a 17th century blueand-white porcelain chocolate cup from Arita that had travelled along a Spanish trade route, via Manila, across the Pacific Ocean to Mexico, then to Cuba and across the Atlantic Ocean to Spain. It was based on my family’s successive and fortunate discoveries of 17th century Japanese chocolate cups during our visits to former Spanish colonies between 2006 and 2009. In this essay, I wish to discuss further encounters with Japanese porcelain chocolate cups, this time in England. In the summer of 2016, during my annual visit to Cambridge, the keeper of the Asian art collection at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Dr. James Lin, whom I have known for a number of years, kindly arranged for me to see some items in the museum’s storage from the collection of the Jenyns family that had been in the museum since 1989. Roger Soame Jenyns (1904-76), who assembled this collection of Japanese porcelain, was an art historian. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge, joined the Hong Kong Civil Service in 1926, and left Hong Kong in 1931 for Britain to work as a curator at the British Museum from 1931 until 1968. I started visiting the Jenyns family home in 2007 to learn more about his academic interest. At the Fitzwilliam Museum, there are 170 pieces of Japanese porcelain from the Jenyns Family Collection. Of these, most of the 17th century polychrome Arita porcelain, such as Kakiemon ware and the Arita plates, had been put on display by the then curator, Mr Robin Crighton, and can now be seen in the Marlay Gallery at the Museum. Based on my experience of visiting other museums, I expected to find a small but interesting number of pieces left in storage at the Fitzwilliam, kept there 54 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter without being identified. When I entered the tall and narrow storage space, my eyes were drawn to three blue-and-white porcelain chocolate cups from the Jenyns collection. Two were a pair and on their bases were written four Chinese characters vertically in two lines in a rather clumsy style in underglaze cobalt blue: 宣徳年製, literally, ‘Xuande era made’, or ‘made in the Sentoku era’. Though Xuande is the name of a 15th century Chinese emperor of the Ming dynasty, who reigned between 1426 and 1435, this clumsily-written reign mark does not mean that the cups were made in 15th century China. Illiterate Arita potters tended to copy the Chinese reign marks, which they saw on imported Chinese porcelain. Inside both cups, a gobenka (or five-petalled motif) is depicted. They are 7.5 cm high with a diameter of 8.8 cm. Considering the aforementioned characteristics these cups were identified to have been made in Arita around 1660-80. The third chocolate cup excited me greatly (figs. 1a and b). It is 9 cm high with a diameter of 7.9 cm. The shape of the cup and the style of the sōkamon, the flowering plant design depicted on the outer surface, are much closer to those of the chocolate cup that my granddaughter, Hisako Nakajima, saw in Oaxaca, Mexico, in 2007, one year after my first discovery of a fragment of a porcelain chocolate cup in Havana, Cuba. Based on the photos I took of the Havana fragment, Professor Ōhashi identified it as also having been made in Arita around 1660-80. In 2008, I found a shard of another Japanese chocolate cup at the Archaeological Museum in Cadiz, Spain, which was mistakenly displayed as Chinese. Professor Ōhashi identified it as Arita porcelain, but decorated with a kraak style design (Fuyode in Japanese). In addition, I found a complete example with the flowering Fig. 1a Fig. 1b plant design in Madrid in 2009. These discoveries led me to believe that this third chocolate cup in the Jenyns Collection had very likely come via the Spanish trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic trade routes. I asked the son of Soame Jenyns, Roger, whether the cup had been with the family for generations, or if his father had acquired it. Roger told me that as there is no family inventory, he did not know how long they had had it, but he thought his father had bought it in London as he never visited Mexico. I wondered whether Soame knew this particular cup may have been transported across two great oceans. I checked his book, Japanese Porcelain (London/Boston: Faber & Faber, 1965), and his ten papers published in the Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, but could not find any reference to chocolate cups, nor was there any reference to the Spanish trading routes for Chinese and Japanese porcelain from Manila to Europe via Mexico. No Westerners, except for the Dutch, were allowed to enter Japan from the middle of the 17th century, however the Dutch did trade along with Chinese merchants. As the Chinese production of export porcelain declined as a result of unrest during the mid17th century, Chinese and Dutch merchants started dealing in Japanese porcelain. Spanish merchants bought porcelain from Chinese merchants in Manila and transported it to their colonies in the Americas and then, although in lesser quantities, to Spain. Spanish trade ships were often attacked by English pirates, who were sometimes sponsored by the royalty. Their cargo included porcelain from China, and might also have included some Japanese porcelain chocolate cups. It seems possible that such cups would have been purchased by wealthy English merchants or other individuals and would have been kept carefully in collections until being put up for sale after the Second World War. However, we should also consider that a shard with a similar flowering plant design was found in Pasar Ikan in Jakarta, Indonesia, which was on the Dutch VOC trade route. We need more evidence of excavated Japanese porcelain shards to determine through which trade route this particular blue-and-white chocolate cup was transported and ultimately arrived in England. Acknowledgements I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to Dr. James Lin of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Professor Kōji Ōhashi, former Director of Kyushu Ceramic Museum, and Mr. & Mrs. Roger Jenyns for their kind assistance over the years. The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 55 Collecting: Unexpected Avenues and Nearly 200 Years of Kraak Porcelain and its Stylistic Influences Roderick E. Wright B.Sc., F.C.A., D.Ch.A. My interest in collecting was inspired by a visit, when I was six, to Roman Verulamium near St Albans in Hertfordshire, which was discovered in the 1930s and was hugely extended in the 1950s. I was given a Roman brick, nail and oyster shell and I still treasure them! Since then, my collecting has undergone many transformations. Each starts with an initial small purchase, significant research (which I enjoy enormously), followed by increasingly more costly acquisitions and ever more research, until I move completely out of an affordable price range. Thereafter, I somehow stumble upon a new object and the cycle resumes. More recently, my love of porcelain endures and my interest in collecting shows no sign of waning. My porcelain collection, now over 700 pieces, started initially with Chinese shipwreck ceramics, and focused on the Hatcher junk, c.1643. I inevitably became aware of the panelled kraak design, of which the Hatcher junk had many pieces, but I largely ignored them. Then some years later, I acquired my first piece of kraak porcelain of good quality (fig. 1a). I had already started collecting Japanese porcelain, and at that moment started taking far more interest in kraak porcelain and particularly in the influences it had on Japanese porcelain. This interest received a major boost, when a dealer friend gave me a piece of English stoneware, c.1814-19 (fig. 3b). This piece was particularly intriguing because its pattern derived from a Japanese design, which in turn was originally inspired by a motif commonly found in kraak porcelain (fig. 3a). Consequently, I have become increasingly interested in understanding and identifying how ideas and decorative motifs have migrated around the world and thus have actively searched for pieces which illustrate these fascinating artistic exchanges. My own collecting centres on the visual impact of a piece and this essay concentrates on the commonly recognized kraak panelled dishes produced in the kilns of Jingdezhen from the Wanli (1573-1620) to Chongzhen (1627-44) periods. 56 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter European merchants, and to a lesser extent Chinese junk traders, exported large quantities of kraak porcelain all around the globe, including the Middle East. One example in my collection illustrates a Persian fritware copy of a kraak design from the second half of the 17th century (fig. 1c). The Japanese porcelain industry began much later than in China and during the first quarter of the 17th century, it was still essentially serving its home market. During the collapse of the Ming dynasty in the mid-17th century, the production of the private kilns in Jingdezhen was affected by the civil war (the imperial kilns were closed in 1608), and thus Japanese potters filled the void. Excavations from the Dutch trading warehouses (of the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC) in Hirado, on the western coast of the island of Kyushu, near Nagasaki, that were abandoned in 1641, have yielded many kraak porcelain shards. Furthermore, as Chinese exports of porcelain diminished as a result of the political and social turmoil in China, the high demand in the Dutch Republic stimulated local production of large presentation or display dishes of faience, inspired by kraak porcelain, at Haarlem and Delft (figs. 3d and 4c). Interestingly, shards of Haarlem kraak style dishes were excavated at Deshima, a small artificial island in Nagasaki harbour, suggesting that Dutch delft imitations also circulated back to Japan and may have served as inspiration for the potters there. A reorganization of the Japanese kilns, chiefly in the area around the town of Arita, was caused by the large quantities of Dutch orders for porcelain starting in 1659. This led to a marked increase in the skills in production, firing and glazing of porcelain. With their native ingenuity and visual mastery of decoration, the Japanese potters were increasingly varying the kraak porcelain designs (fig. 1b and fig. 2a, b and c). The example in fig. 1b has a moulded panelled border very similar to the dish border described by Maura Rinaldi in 1989 as type VII. The three examples in fig. 2 also show the single most copied motif from kraak Fig. 1 a) Kraak porcelain dish recovered from the Hatcher junk, China, c.1643. Diameter: 26 cm. b) Arita porcelain dish moulded with a border very similar to Rinaldi VII, Hizen province, Japan, c.1660. Diameter: 20.7 cm. c) Persian fritware dish, possibly Mashad, 2nd half 17th century. Diameter: 21.3 cm. Fig. 2 a) Arita porcelain dish, Hizen province, Japan, c.1680-1700. Diameter: 43 cm. b) Arita porcelain dish, Hizen province, Japan, c.1690-1730. Diameter: 27.5 cm. c) Arita porcelain dish, Hizen province, Japan, c.1680-1700. Diameter: 40 cm. Fig. 3 a) Arita porcelain dish, Hizen province, Japan, c.1700. Diameter: 39.4 cm. b) English plate, J & W Ridgeway, c.1814-19. Diameter: 25 cm. c) English cup and saucer, Spode pattern 3886, Stoke-on-Trent, c.1820. Saucer diameter: 14.4 cm; Cup diameter: 7.7 cm, Height 6.8 cm. d) Delft earthenware dish, c.1660-80. Diameter: 32.5 cm. Fig. 4 a) Arita porcelain dish, Hizen province, Japan, c.1700. Diameter: 52.2 cm. b) Imari porcelain dish, Hizen province, Japan, c.1700-30. Diameter: 20 cm. c) Delft earthenware plate, c.1660-80. Diameter: 32.5 cm. The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 57 dishes/plates, ‘the koro/vase on a verandah’. Notice, as well, how the border becomes increasingly more ‘Japanese’, metamorphosing from the typical kraak panelled design to a continuous border of scrolling vine (karakusa). The dish illustrated in fig. 2b is identically decorated to a larger example in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen. With the kilns in Jingdezhen destroyed during civil disturbances in 1675, the Japanese potters became adept at exploiting the increasing demands from the European market. One way they achieved this is by imitating the popular design arrangements of kraak porcelain. This is clearly seen in this Arita example in my collection (fig. 3a), which copies the kraak style of the central medallion and panelled border, but is executed in a more formalized way. This copying and imitating was fluid, spread widely and continued through centuries. An unusual example in my collection (fig. 3b) shows an English manufactured plate of c.1814-19 successfully imitating a Japanese kraak design, which in turn copied the original kraak designs. In addition, this Spode cup and saucer manufactured in Stoke-onTrent in England in c.1820 and painted with underglaze blue and iron red and gold overglaze enamels 58 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter (fig. 3c) clearly imitates the well-known ‘koro/vase on a verandah’ motif prevalent in Japanese kraak style designs. The Delft factories were still imitating kraak porcelain in c.1660-80 and this means that there was still a market in the Dutch Republic for such Chinese designs (fig. 3d). With the Chinese kilns being rebuilt in c.1680s under the Kangxi Emperor (1662-1722), Chinese porcelain re-entered the global marketplace and competed fiercely. By the middle of the 1700s, the Japanese kilns suffered a decline. Nevertheless, in this period many very beautiful pieces were produced and still referenced the original kraak style of a central medallion surrounded by a densely decorated panelled border. Two examples in my collection, a Delft plate dating to c.1660-80 (fig. 4c) and a later Japanese dish dating to c.1700 (fig. 4a), illustrate that these exchanges of designs and motifs continued. Finally, I cannot resist including this Imari dish of slightly later date, c.1700-30 (fig. 4b). The overall design composition with panels densely decorated with alternating motifs, including the swastika, surely has a kraak ancestry? Book Reviews At the Prince’s Table: Dining at the Lisbon Court (1500–1700): silver, mother-of-pearl, rock crystal and porcelain Hugo Miguel Crespo (ed.) AR/PAB, Lisbon, 2018, 280 pages, ISBN 978-989-96180-4-6, hardback, 65 euros + VAT Available online at: www. pab.pt/_usr/downloads/ Catalogo_AMesadoPrincipe. pdf Catherine of Austria (1507-1578) was mad for blueand-white Ming porcelain. As the wife of João III of Portugal (r. 1521-1557), who ruled during the heyday of Portuguese global expansion, she was more than able to indulge her passion. What, though, did she do with all her porcelain? (As well as the Japanese lacquer fans and trays, Gujarati mother-of-pearl ewers and basins, Indian rock crystal salts in the form of dogs and elephants, and, closer to home, elaborately embossed Portuguese silver plate). This handsomely-produced book on 16th and early 17th century dining rituals at the Portuguese royal court gathers the scattered evidence of mid-16th century royal inventories, contemporary accounts, paintings and objects to reveal not only the importance of a Ming bowl or a silver drinking cup in rituals of courtly dining, collecting or gift-exchange, but also the relationship between written descriptions and surviving objects. Annemarie Jordan Gschwend’s assessment of Catherine of Austria’s dining experience at the Portuguese court revisits earlier research she published in 1999, and is now illustrated with numerous colour plates. She also offers, in an appendix, a transcription of the accounts drawn up in May 1576 which detail the expenses (including the purchase of 300 nails and 6 English cheeses) incurred in moving Catherine’s household temporarily to the palace of São Francisco, just outside Lisbon. Her interpretation of the patchy evidence is careful and thoughtful. We learn that Catherine displayed and used her porcelain at the dining table or in the royal dispensary, and that although by the 1560s Lisbon had been flooded with Chinese porcelain, it was still an appropriate diplomatic gift. In 1554, Catherine presented the Papal nuncio with a Jiajing bowl (pp. 40-41). The symbolism inherent in her choice of present suggests the crucial role objects in precious or non-European materials played in court rituals that were designed to reinforce hierarchy. In his essay on the design and function of tablewares (which focusses principally on silver plate), Hugo Miguel Crespo studies inventory descriptions and uses paintings and engravings to identify different types of vessel, and explores the ways in which these were displayed and used. Paradoxically, his thoughtful and thorough analysis also reveals the slipperiness of the visual sources, where symbolism and artistry compete with realism. Rejecting an earlier identification of a basin-like dish that a servant fills with wine in the background of Gregório Lopes’s ‘Last Supper’ as a vessel for handwashing, he argues instead that it is a type of shallow drinking bowl (‘salva’) used to test the king’s food for poison (pp. 68-71). Yet the plain, wide, rim of the vessel is unlike those of the surviving ‘salvas’ illustrated in the book, while the overall symbolism of the painting suggests that, as a basin for handwashing, it would reinforce the message of Christ’s sacrifice by foreshadowing Pilate’s washing of his hands (Matthew 27.24). The core of the volume is the detailed descriptions of 34 examples of exquisitely-produced tablewares, all currently or recently in the collection of the publishers, the dealer/collectors Pedro Aguiar Branco and Álvaro Roquette. These include mounted Chinese porcelain, carved rock crystal from Goa and Milan and, somewhat incongruously, an English mazer cup. The descriptions are accompanied by two short texts: Sasha Assis Lima writes on wine consumption and grape varieties in early modern Portugal and Letizia Arbeteta Mira introduces the princely taste for rock crystal carved in Milanese workshops. Editor and contributor Hugo Miguel Crespo is also to be congratulated on providing a fluent English translation of the contents, particularly given the numerous specialised terms employed in the texts. This book joins a growing corpus of works published by Pedro Aguiar Branco and Álvaro Roquette to enlighten and entice (members of the Oriental Ceramic Society may be familiar with the study on Portuguese heraldry and Chinese porcelain by Pedro Dias, which was brought out in 2011), and their continued support of scholarship in the field of Portuguese, Indian and Far Eastern decorative arts is to be welcomed. Kirstin Kennedy The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 59 Jun Yao Ceramics from The Beixuan Shuzhai Collection 柏 煊 書 齋 • 鈞 窯 JUN YAO CERAMICS FROM THE BEIXUAN SHUZHAI COLLEC TION Qin Dashu Muwen Tang Fine Arts Publication Ltd, Hong Kong, 2017, 246 pages, ISBN 978-988-19940-5-9, hardback. This lavishly presented volume is a scholarly catalogue of a collection owned by Simon Kwan, the noted Hong Kong architect, author and collector. It is a sign of the times that the book, unlike earlier catalogues authored and published by Simon Kwan, is presented solely in Chinese. The essays are written by Qin Dashu, Professor of Archaeology at Beijing University and one of the principal excavators of the Jun kilns. The first essay deals with textual and archaeological research, including various connoisseurial books like Ge gu yao lun (Essential Criteria of Antiquities) by Cao Zhao, published in 1388 with revisions by Wang Zuo in 1459. It is significant that prior to the mid-Ming period Jun ware was not mentioned by name, for example a Jin dynasty poem by Zhao Bingwen praised Jun ware, but described a vessel as “Ru ware zun wine vessel”. During the later Ming and Qing dynasties, Jun ware was believed to be an imperial ceramic, one of the “five famous wares” of the Song dynasty. The essay covers 20th century research, 60 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter including that by western scholars such as Basil Gray and Margaret Medley. The 21st century is dominated by new archaeological work carried out in 2001, 2004, 2011 and 2013. Chapter 2 describes the exact geographical location of Jun kilns, and other wares that were made alongside them, including Ru, greenwares, blackwares and Cizhou. Chapter 3 analyses the development of Jun within the parameters of Chinese ceramic history, its firing characteristics, glazes, shapes and decorations during the Jin and Yuan dynasties. The addition of copper red to vessels in late Yuan to early Ming is noted as an important manifestation, for copper red glazes were also being developed at Jingdezhen at this time. Chapter 4 deals with Ming dynasty production, including the manufacture of numbered Jun, whose dating was until recent years the subject of debate. This book places them firmly in the Xuande to Chenghua periods of the 15th century. Another topic is the manufacture of large storage vessels for the imperial kitchens. Chapter 5 examines the major contributions Jun ware made to Chinese ceramic history in terms of glaze innovation, forming, firing and kilns. Chapter 6 examines the influence that Jun ware had on later ceramic traditions, for example those of Liujiamen, Yixing and Shiwan. The catalogue section contains 35 pieces, described and referenced in detail. They range from azure-glazed bowls of the Northern Song, through green Jun of the Jin dynasty, to copper splashed wares dating from the Northern Song to Ming. Noteworthy are an early Jin moon-white glazed “puzzle” winecup (catalogue number 8) and a Ming bowl whose exterior is entirely red (catalogue number 9). This book has high production values, is well catalogued and referenced, and contains new research and good pictures. As such, and in spite of the fact that it is not in English, it merits inclusion in any collector’s library. Rose Kerr Arts of Allusion: Object, Ornament, and Architecture in Medieval Islam Margaret S. Graves Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2018, 352 pages, 125 images, ISBN: 9780190695910, £55. Also available as an Ebook. This thought-provoking book is an interesting exercise in placing the Islamic so-called ‘minor’ or portable plastic art objects within their conceptual contexts. The author, Margaret Graves, examines each of her categories both philosophically and practically – teasing out the thoughts behind both their form and their making. As she repeatedly expounds, she approaches her study through the maxim: ‘making is thinking’. One of the drawbacks to any study on Islamic art, as she openly admits, is the lack of provenance for most dealer-derived museum pieces and the possibility that many items have been incorrectly ‘restored’. Recent events in Iraq and Syria have also destroyed some of the architectural ‘evidence’ cited from buildings around Mosul. Space obviously does not permit a rethink for a study of all categories of Islamic art objects, but to illustrate her themes Graves has selected architectural decoration and through this medium: miniature ceramic courthouse models, perhaps made for talismanic protection; ceramic lanterns representing miniature shrines; tray stands decorated with both architectural facades and human figures; inlaid copper alloy inkwells alluding to portable architecture in the form of tents; incense burners mimicking domed buildings; unglazed water storage jars (or habbs) articulated with arched façades and human figures; and marble water jar stands (or kilgas) fashioned from spolia. All the so-called ‘minor arts’ are shown to be either metaphors for architectural decoration or reference aspects of it. All these points are comprehensively well-illustrated largely with colour images within the text and where appropriate fuller details. The author’s premise for this new approach to studying medieval Islamic art of the object is that hitherto scholars have undoubtedly encountered problems when viewing the topic through the prism of western art history, following taxonomic methodologies. In the five chapters of this book Graves lays out the case for a medieval Islamic art of allusion. She is an exponent of the ‘thinking hand’. Through exploring a web of connections drawn by medieval craftsmen between objects and buildings (the arts of the third dimension), she stipulates it is possible to discover indirect references that they harnessed to generate formal and conceptual correlations between the two practices, a theme that Scott Redford has already explored through Anatolian figural ceramic glazed wares that he perceives as alluding to palace architecture. See S. Redford, ‘Portable palaces: on circulation of objects and ideas about architecture in medieval Anatolia and Mesopotamia, Medieval Encounters 18, 2012, pp.382-412. To support her thoughts on the ‘thinking hand’ she draws on textual sources, admitting that there is no information as to how these ideas were transmitted, especially amongst any illiterate craftsmen, although this rather ignores an oral tradition. She cites the 10th century compilation known as Rasa’il al-ikhwān al-ṣafā’ (The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity), as a most illuminating text with regard to organisation and aesthetics. Although it is impossible to cite this as proof for early craft guilds, it does give an insight into craft production. It is this discussion that is important in this book’s context. The craftsmen’s possible thought processes are also supported by an earlier Iraqi author, al-Jāhiz (d. 868/9), who wrote extensively on craftsmanship and we are told was of the view that craftsmen both made and spoke through their output. This new approach to Islamic art studies is a fascinating exercise and is well worth pursuing. It may be difficult to persuade traditionalists, but I would thoroughly recommend reading this volume, which will undoubtedly excite extensive discussions. Rosalind A. Wade Haddon The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 61 Auction Calendar 2019 Around the World United Kingdom Société Française d’Etude de la Céramique Orientale Musée Cernuschi, 7 avenue Velasquez, Paris 75008, France Southeast Asian Ceramic Society Singapore Tanglin P.O. Box 317, Singapore 912411, seaceramic.org.sg The Oriental Ceramic Society of Portugal – Associação Amigos do Oriente Rua da Imprensa Nacional, no 30, Lisboa 1250–123, Portugal Southeast Asian Ceramic Society West Malaysia 11 Jalan Balai Polis, Kuala Lumpur 50000, Malaysia Bonhams, New Bond Street, London Sotheby’s, London Fine Chinese Art, May 16 Important Chinese Art, 15 May St George Street Sale: Asian Art, 17 May Christies, London Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, 14 May Sworders Important Chinese Jades from the Dizang Studio, 14 May Asian Art, 17 May Dragon Throne for the Son of Heaven, 14 May Asian Art, 8 November Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, 5 November Woolley & Wallis Dreweatts Japanese, Islamic and Indian Works of Art to include a collection of Iznik and Damascus tiles from the Estate of the late Sir Howard Hodgkin CH CBE, 22 May Asian Art, Chinese Paintings & Japanese Works of Art, 21-22 May Asian Art, Chinese Paintings & Japanese Works of Art, 12-13 November Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, 23 May Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, 11 November Asia Japanese, Islamic and Indian Works of Art, 12 November Bonhams, Hong Kong Duke’s Christies, Hong Kong Asian Art, 20 May Fine Chinese Classical Paintings and Calligraphy, 27 May Lyon & Turnbull Masterpieces of Ukiyo-e: A Collection of Japanese Prints Formerly in a Japanese Private Museum, 27 May Fine Asian Works of Art, 15 May Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, 28 May Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, 29 Ma The Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong G.P.O. Box 6202, Central, Hong Kong, orientalceramics.org.hk The Oriental Ceramic Society of Norway (NSOK) Postboks 17, N-1318 Bekkestua, Norway, orientalskkeramikk.com The Oriental Ceramic Society of Sweden c/o Kerstin Vansvik, #1201, Sodra Vagen 32, 412 54 Goteborg, Sweden, ocssweden.se Oriental Ceramic Society of the Philippines P.O. Box 80, Dasmariñas Village, Manila City, Metro Manila, The Philippines, facebook.com/ocsphil/ The Ceramic Society of Indonesia Jl. Turi I / 10 Blok S, Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta 12180, Indonesia himpunankeramikindonesia.com The Japan Society of Oriental Ceramic Studies #201, San’ei Building, 6–9, 2-chome, Misaki-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101–0061, Japan http://toyotoji.com/en/society/ The Asiatic Society of Japan c/o Tokyo Health Care University, 2-5-1 Higashigaoka, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-0021, Japan, asjapan.org TAASA – The Asian Arts Society of Australia P.O. Box 996, Potts Point, NSW 2011, Australia, taasa.org.au Reminder The rules of the Oriental Ceramic Society provide that no member is entitled to make use of the Society’s name for any business or trade purpose, nor shall any member dealing in antiquities or ceramic ware advertise his / her membership except in the Society’s Transactions and Newsletter. Disclaimer The views expressed in the articles herein represent the views of their writers. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of the information given in this Newsletter. The Oriental Ceramic Society P.O. Box 517, Cambridge CB21 5BE, U.K. web address: www.ocs-london.com e-mail: ocs.london@btinternet.com telephone: +44 (0) 1223 881328 Registered Charity no 250356 Front cover image: Water Dropper in the Shape of a Peach, Joseon dynasty (1392-1910), second half of 18th century. 11.1 x 9.5 x 9.8 cm. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Robert S. Anderson, 1993.185.3 This issue of the Newsletter of the Oriental Ceramic Society was edited by Teresa Canepa and Beth Gardiner We thank Zickey Zhao for her contributions We thank Laura Parker and Welmoet Wartena for the design Back cover image: Coppersmiths at work in a shop in Cairo, late 19th century (detail). ©Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Ph.1382-1896) From the conference: ‘Middle Eastern Crafts: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum Printed by N2 Visual Communications Ltd 62 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter 63 64 The Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter