Period:Ming dynasty Production date:1635-1644 (circa)
Materials:porcelain
Technique:glazed, underglazed,
Subjects:plum blossom/tree child landscape scholar
Dimensions:Diameter: 5.50 inches (with handle) Height: 19.50 centimetres
Description:
Pair of porcelain tankards (‘snelletje’) with underglaze blue decoration. This pair of slender tankards each has a narrow neck and flares to a broader base with a thick rounded side handle. Both are painted in rich tones of underglaze blue. One shows a scholar-official wearing a black gauze hat with ‘wings’, a loose round-necked robe, rank badge and boots. He is walking in a landscape with two servants, one carrying a large pile of books on his shoulder, the other standing behind his master holding a large round fan decorated with plum blossom. The scene is bordered above and below with a chrysanthemum scroll, the handle with a daylily. The other tankard is decorated with a landscape with two figures dressed in loose V-necked robes tied at the front with a sash. One is holding a spray of ‘lingzhi’ fungus while the other carries a basket of flowers, possibly representing Lan Caihe, one of the Eight Daoist Immortals. It is framed by a border of flower scrolls above and below. Each tankard has a flat unglazed base.
IMG
![图片[1]-tankard BM-Franks.155-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/Ming dynasty/Ceramics/mid_00359419_001.jpg)
![图片[2]-tankard BM-Franks.155-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/Ming dynasty/Ceramics/mid_00265032_001.jpg)
Comments:Harrison-Hall 2001:Tankards of this type are modelled after Dutch stoneware or wooden prototypes and were made exclusively for export to Europe with Chinese ‘transitional’-style figurative designs. In 1635 painted turned-wooden models were dispatched to China via the governors of Fort Zeelandia in Taiwan to be copied, and in 1636 stoneware ‘snelletjes’, made in Cologne, were also sent to Jingdezhen. Several tankards of the present type survive with European silver mounts dating to the 1640s: one example with a silver mount dated 1642 is in the Hamburg Museum, another with silver foot mounts and a silver cover engraved with the monogram and coat of arms of Admiral Herik Bielke and of his wife Edele Ulfeldt is in the Alborg Historiske Museum, Denmark – this was probably a gift on the occasion of their marriage in 1649, although there is no hallmark on the silver. In addition to the Dutch records and items with dated mounts, tankards of this type are also accurately rendered in still-life oil paintings of the mid seventeenth century. For example a still-life oil painting by Jan van de Velde (c. 1620-62), a Dutch artist from Haarlem, shows a porcelain tankard with a design of a scholar accompanied by a servant holding a large fan, similar to the present piece but with silver mounts, together with a ‘kraak’ dish filled with fruits.Tankards of this type survive in numerous public collections but an unusual variant of this shape with different figure scene decoration and with additional gilding is in the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia.Compare with Franks.1676.
Materials:porcelain
Technique:glazed, underglazed,
Subjects:plum blossom/tree child landscape scholar
Dimensions:Diameter: 5.50 inches (with handle) Height: 19.50 centimetres
Description:
Pair of porcelain tankards (‘snelletje’) with underglaze blue decoration. This pair of slender tankards each has a narrow neck and flares to a broader base with a thick rounded side handle. Both are painted in rich tones of underglaze blue. One shows a scholar-official wearing a black gauze hat with ‘wings’, a loose round-necked robe, rank badge and boots. He is walking in a landscape with two servants, one carrying a large pile of books on his shoulder, the other standing behind his master holding a large round fan decorated with plum blossom. The scene is bordered above and below with a chrysanthemum scroll, the handle with a daylily. The other tankard is decorated with a landscape with two figures dressed in loose V-necked robes tied at the front with a sash. One is holding a spray of ‘lingzhi’ fungus while the other carries a basket of flowers, possibly representing Lan Caihe, one of the Eight Daoist Immortals. It is framed by a border of flower scrolls above and below. Each tankard has a flat unglazed base.
IMG
Comments:Harrison-Hall 2001:Tankards of this type are modelled after Dutch stoneware or wooden prototypes and were made exclusively for export to Europe with Chinese ‘transitional’-style figurative designs. In 1635 painted turned-wooden models were dispatched to China via the governors of Fort Zeelandia in Taiwan to be copied, and in 1636 stoneware ‘snelletjes’, made in Cologne, were also sent to Jingdezhen. Several tankards of the present type survive with European silver mounts dating to the 1640s: one example with a silver mount dated 1642 is in the Hamburg Museum, another with silver foot mounts and a silver cover engraved with the monogram and coat of arms of Admiral Herik Bielke and of his wife Edele Ulfeldt is in the Alborg Historiske Museum, Denmark – this was probably a gift on the occasion of their marriage in 1649, although there is no hallmark on the silver. In addition to the Dutch records and items with dated mounts, tankards of this type are also accurately rendered in still-life oil paintings of the mid seventeenth century. For example a still-life oil painting by Jan van de Velde (c. 1620-62), a Dutch artist from Haarlem, shows a porcelain tankard with a design of a scholar accompanied by a servant holding a large fan, similar to the present piece but with silver mounts, together with a ‘kraak’ dish filled with fruits.Tankards of this type survive in numerous public collections but an unusual variant of this shape with different figure scene decoration and with additional gilding is in the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia.Compare with Franks.1676.
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