TWO 'BLUE AND WHITE' ELEPHANT-SHAPED KENDI, ONE WITH METAL MOUNT

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TWO ‘BLUE AND WHITE’ ELEPHANT-SHAPED KENDI, ONE WITH METAL MOUNT
the porcelain Ming dynasty, Wanli period; the metal mount probably Ottoman, 19th century
17,7 cm and 20,5cm high
Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection; gift of De Sangro (1978).
inv. n. 3721.

Each of the water vessels in the form of a seated caparisoned elephant, the pierced tusks would have formed the spout. The tubular neck, one now metal mounted, rising from the painted saddle cloth, painted on one with a ruyi-head reserved against cash diaper ground and on the other reserved against fish-scale ground.

Elephants (xiang) lived in China until the first millenium BC, known in the following centuries only by literari references. Its iconography was later based mainly on the images of Puxian (Samantabhadra), the bodhisattva of power, shrewdness and wisdom, who was usually depicted together with a white elephant. Even if vessel shaped as an elephant entered in the repertory of ceramists from the 5th-6th century, this motif was later used sporadically, and the animal was usually depicted with physical characteristics that not adehering to its real physiognomy, as can be seen in these kendi.

During the Wanli period the bodies of kendi were also produced in other zoomorphic forms such as cow, squirrel, frog and dragon (see R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, 3 voll., London 1986, nn. 1293, 1296 and 1297; and from the Sir Percival David Collection, in the British Museum, London: M. Medley, Illustrated Catalogue of Ming Polychrome Wares in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London 1978, p. 39, n. 116, PDF, A.756).

The form of the elephant and the tubular filler could be related to the subject of an elephant carrying a vase. The words for “elephant” and “vase” are homophonic to “peace” and “signs”, therefore appropriate for the Chinese proverb Taiping youxiang, “when there is peace there are signs”.

Porcelain ewers in the shape of an elephant are listed in the inventory of the goods belonged to King Philip II of Spain (1527-1598), compiled in the year of his death (T. Canepa, Kraak porcelain. The rise of global trade in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, London 2008, p. 54). A kendi similar to the ones here discussed was found in the wreck of the San Diego which sank in 1600 outside Manila Bay (D. Carré – J-P. Desroches – F. Goddio, Le San Diego. Un trésor sous la mer, Paris 1994, p. 316, n. 81). Closely relating pieces were also in the Witte Leuw cargo, shipwrecked in 1613 (J. McClure, Chinese Export Porcelain in North America, New York 1986, p. 68, fig. 97). Further ‘elephant’ kendi were also in cargo of the Wanli which sank in 1625 (S. Sjostrand – Sharipah Lok Lok bt Syed Idrus, The Wanli Shipwreck and its Ceramic Cargo, Kuala Lampur 2007, pp. 90-91, n. 1127).
These pieces are not only an important chronological reference to date this kind of kendi, but they also prove that similar zoomorphic ewers were destined to export to most of the global markets of that time, Europe, New World and South-east Asia.
Ten similar ‘elephant’ kendi with some variations on the design of the saddle cloth and ornaments are in the Topkapi Sarai Museum, Istanbul (R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, 3 voll., London 1986, II, nn. 1294-1295): one of them has an upside-down coats-of-arms which belonged to D. João de Almeida (born circa 1540), a portuguese nobleman who was First Captain for the Royal House the first time in 1571-1572 and the second time in 1581-1582 (M. Rinaldi, Kraak Porcelain: A Moment in the History of Trade, London 1989, p. 181, pl. 232). Another similar item, now in the Teheran Archeological Museum, was placed in the Ardebil mausoleum in 1611 by Shah Abbas (1587-1629) (J.A. Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, Washington D.C. 1956, p. 97): it was probably this collection which inspired the production in Iran of similar ‘elephant’ kendi in the second quarter of the seventeenth century (see J. Carswell, Blue and White. Chinese Porcelain and Its Impact on the Western World, exhibition catalogue, Chicago 1985, pp. 144-145, n. 84, for an example of this Safavid production in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York); a pair of similar kendi is also in the Royal British collection, originally in the Hampton Court Palace (J. Ayers, Chinese and Japanese Works of Art in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, 2 voll. London 2016: I, p. 116, nn. 217-218); related pieces belonged to the collection of Augustus the Strong (1670-1733), now in the Porzellansammlung in Dresden (inv. n. PO 2335). Further examples are in the Baur Foundation, Geneva (M. Crick, Chinese Trade Ceramics for South-East Aasia from the 1st to the 17th century. Collection of Ambassador and Mrs Charles Müller, Milan 2010, pp. 290-291, n. 165), in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (C.J.A. Jörg, in collaboration with J. Van Campen, Chinese Ceramics in the Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. The Ming and Qing Dynasties, London 1997, p. 68, n. 55), in the British Museum, London Percival David Foundation (M. Medley, The Chinese Potter. A practical history of Chinese Ceramics, London 1976 (consulted edition, London 1989), p. 227, fig. 175), in the San Francisco Asian Art Museum (He Li, Chinese Ceramics. The New Standard Guide, London 1996, p. 229, n. 445), in the Zeeuws Museum in Middleburg (D.F. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Chinese Export Porcelain, Chine de Commande, London 1974, pl. 30), in the Adam Malik Museum in Jakarta (S. Adhyatman, Antique Ceramics found in Indonesia, various Uses and Origins, Jakarta 1990, pp. 166-167, n. 158).

A similar kendi appear on a Dutch still-life from the mid seventeenth century signed with the monogram “W.K.”, traditionally attributed to Willem Kalf, now in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Museum in Weimar. Another comparable ‘elephant’ kendi is on a shelf in the painting entitled Á la Table de Toilette (circa 1727) by Jean-François de Troy (1679-1752) (Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City).