3.
A ‘BLUE AND WHITE’ INSCRIBED BOWL
Ming dynasty, Jiajing period, dated to 1541
19,4 cm wide
Apocryphal Da Ming Xuande nianzhi six-character mark.
Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, collezione Placido de Sangro (1829-1891).
inv. n. 3309.
A sea route was discovered in 1497 by Vasco de Gama (circa 1460-1524), who was the first European to reach India by sea. In 1498 in Calicut he found spices, Chinese silks and porcelain. This led Manuel I of Portugal (r. 1495-1521) to sponsor additional expeditions which established Portuguese dominance in Asian waters and factories at locations such as Cochin, Calcutta, Colombo, Goa and Malacca, with an embassy being established in Beijing in 1517. The Portuguese trade in Chinese export porcelain was largely limited to pieces made for Portuguese officials and those involved in the trade, whereas, later on the commercial potential in bulk export of Chinese porcelain was better explored by the Dutch and the English East India Companies.
The bowl is inscribed around the internal rim “Em tempo/ De Pero/ De/ Faria/ De 541”. This inscription states that the bowl was made in 1541 for Pero da Faria. He was Governor of Goa from 1526-1528, Governor of Malacca from 1528-1529 and again 1539-1542. It was during the latter period that the bowl was commissioned and made for him. He is reported to have been in China in 1541 to recruit among the Portuguese in Fujian for an expedition to find the legendary ‘gold islands’ (A. Kammerer, La découverte de la Chine par les Portugais au XVIème siècle et la cartographie des Portulans, Leiden 1944, p. 100).
The bowl it is painted in the well with the arms of the Portuguese family of Abreu. Antonio and Joao Fernandes de Abreu were friends of da Faria from India and Antonio was later appointed Sea Captain of Malacca (L. Keil, Sixteenth Century Chinese Porcelain with Inscriptions in Portuguese, Lisbon 1942). On the exterior the bowl is painted with the design of ‘boys at play’. This design is a continuation of that seen on bowls in the fifteenth century, such as a ‘blue and white’ bowl, 1436-1464, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei (T. Mei-Fen – W. Yu-Wen, Radiating Hues of Blue and White, Taipei 2015, n. 49). The traditional ‘100 boys’ design was introduced during the Song dynasty and revived during the Ming dynasty. This design represented the wish for birth of sons, continuity of the family as well as for the hope that the sons would excel in their civil examinations to become officials and secure the family future and honour.
Only two other bowls with this inscription are known: the first in the Topkapi Saray, Istanbul, however, without the ear-shaped handles on the rim and with the exterior painted with alternating armillary sphere and coat of arms of Manuel I of Portugal, flanked by floral scrolls (R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, 3 voll., London 1986, n. 812); the second, of similar form, but with the exterior painted with horseman and the interior with a lohan or monk, is in the Beja Museum, Portugual (D. Lion-Goldschmidt, Ming Porcelain, London 1978, pls. 133-133a). All three bowls are painted on the base with an apocryphal Xuande six-character mark.
