34.
A ‘BLUE AND WHITE’ BOTTLE VASE
Ming dynasty, Chongzhen period
27,1 cm high
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 4687.
Bottle vases such as this were produced in Jingdezhen, probably in the Shibaqiao and Lianhualing kilns, explicitly for the Dutch market. According to a widely accepted scholarly tradition, the flowers which adorn the neck are in fact the stylization of tulips, a flower which was very appreciated in Holland soon after the introduction of its cultivation from Persia in the late sixteenth century. The passion for this flowers progressively increased causing an extraordinary raise of the prices of the bulbs which collapsed in the so-called ‘Tulip Bubble’ of 1637, about in the same years this vase was produced.
It is known that the the Dutch East India Company (VOC), after having opened a base in Tayouan in 1624, ordered to Chinese ceramists not only particular shapes, but also precise decorative motifs and even specific tones of the blue, which should be not too pale or too dark (C. Viallé, De bescheiden van de VOC betreffende de handel in Chinees en Japans porselein tussen 1634 en 1661 (The records of the VOC concerning the trade in Chinese and Japanese porcelain between 1634 and 1661), in “Aziatische Kunst, 3, September 1992, pp. 7-34, p. 10). It is therefore very probable that VOC servants gave to Chinese merchant drawings, prints and even ceramic tiles depicting the stylized tulip then reproduced on bottles such as the one here discussed (T. Canepa, Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer. China and Japan and their Trade with Western Europe and the New World 1500-1644, London 2016, pp. 311-313; in particular, fig. III.241 with an illustration of Dutch wall-tiles dating to the first half of the seventeenth century).
The shape of this bottle vase and the style of its decoration – the main scene, probably inspired by literature, depicting two young men seated in a landscape with taihu rocks and plants, a chessboard and an ewer near one of them – show typical features of the porcelain production of Chongzhen period.
A bottle vase with an analogous shape and similar decoration with the stylized tulip on the neck is now in the National Museum of Denmark in Copenaghen. It was acquired by King Frederik III in 1656 thank to his ambassador in Holland, sent in 1691 to the Rosenborg Castle to enter in the Royal Kunstkammer (T. Clemmensen – M.B. Mackeprang, Kina og Danmark 1600-1950. Kinafart og Kinamode, Copenaghen 1980, pp. 44-45, fig. 20).
Bottles similar to this are well represented in the collection of Augustus the Strong, now in the Porzellansammlung in Dresden (inv. PO 2126); see also the two bottles with an analogous decorative scheme in the Butler collection (M. Butler, Late Ming. Chinese Porcelain from the Butler Collections, exhibition catalogue, Luxembourg 2008, nn. 77-79).
This kind of bottles was used as model by the Delft ceramists already before the end of the seventeenth century. See for example, the piece in the Kunstmuseum in Den Haag (inv. 0400447), from the workshop of Samuel van Eenhoorn and dated to 1678-1686 circa.
