Home > The Princessehof collection of Asian ceramics > Chinese and Japanese trade ceramics > 4. Kraak porcelain (c. 1595 - c. 1650)
Home > The Princessehof collection of Asian ceramics > Chinese and Japanese trade ceramics > 4. Kraak porcelain (c. 1595 - c. 1650)
Kraak porcelain constitutes a group of porcelains made in the late Ming dynasty (1368-1644) mainly for the Western market. This type of porcelain, traded first by the Portuguese and the Spanish, was transported from the early 17th century onwards in immense quantities by the Dutch East India Company (VOC). The curious name is a Dutch translation of the word carraca, the type of Portuguese ship that carried the porcelains. The word was mentioned, presumably for the first time, in a letter written by a VOC official in Batavia and dated 1639.
The Dutch engaged in trade in the Far East when in 1595 king Philip II closed the Portuguese ports. Spices, silks and other goods, brought back from the Orient by the Portuguese, had until then been distributed by the Dutch in northern Europe. They now focused on obtaining the lucrative spice trade in the Moluccas and the Banda islands themselves. However, the profitability of trade in another commodity, Chinese porcelain, became clear when the Dutch captured two Portuguese ships and sold their cargoes at auction in Middelburg (1602) and Amsterdam (1604). One of the types of porcelain aboard, the Kraak porcelain, sold at very high prices and became immensely popular in Holland. There it was shown in the interiors on shelves along the walls or in cabinets, and used for serving food or wine, thus providing status to the owner. Initially, in the early 17th century, only the rich could afford the porcelain, but gradually the middle-class could partake in the fashion.
The demand for porcelain was equally high in Asia and the VOC became the main distributors on the inter-Asiatic market. The porcelain was initially bought at the market in Bantam where it had been brought by Chinese junks. Direct trading with the Chinese was extremely difficult since they were forbidden to deal with foreigners, especially with the obtrusive Dutch. However, a regular supply of Chinese products was eventually ensured by the permission granted by the mainland in 1624 to the Dutch to settle on Formosa (now Taiwan). From there the goods were brought to Batavia and shipped to Holland.
Details concerning the amounts that were ordered, the shapes, proportions, and prices of Kraak porcelain brought to Holland are all documented by the VOC but these records do not take into account the extent of private trade that went on. On homebound ships space was made available to the crew for their own business, orders from family and friends, or silks, lacquer and porcelains for personal use. Also, space aboard a ship could be bought by private traders to send merchandise back home. The extent of this private trade is still being researched.
Shipwrecks along the main trade routes are an invaluable source of information with regard to dating Kraak porcelain. They include the Spanish Manila galleon the SanDiego (1600), the Dutch East-Indiamen the Mauritius (1609), the Witte Leeuw (1613), the Banda (1615), and several discovered but as yet unpublished Dutch and Portuguese wrecks. Likewise, excavations of kiln sites in Jingdezhen provide data. In the last ten years seven kilns have been discovered, the Guanyingge kiln being regarded as the most important. Archaeological discoveries at VOC settlements on the trade routes as well as finds in cesspits in Holland give significant information.
Painted and written sources such as early 17th century Dutch paintings and inventories of great collections also contribute in the knowledge of the trade in Kraak porcelain. In a log of the East Indiaman the Gelderland of 1601-1603 drawings were found of porcelain cups, bowls, saucers, dishes and a klapmuts, a specific type of bowl named after a Dutch hat. These sketches by a crew member are also indicative of the types of Kraak porcelain available to foreign merchants at that time.
The majority of Kraak wares was produced at Jingdezhen but objects bearing a mark of a local oven in Dehua are also known. Kraak porcelain was found in several graves in Jiangxi and Fujian, both of dignitaries and citizens, indicating that the wares were used by the Chinese themselves as well and that they served as burial gifts.
Kraak porcelain is a thinly potted ware made of a clay that shows impurities and pitting. The footring is V-shaped and undercut, the base often shows chatter marks and adhering kiln grit. Open forms such as dishes, bowls and saucers are far more common than closed forms such as vases and bottles. The wares are mostly moulded except for very large dishes. Moulding becomes rare in the later production of lesser quality but can still be found on good quality pieces.
The glaze is thin, of a greyish or bluish colour and shows fritting at the rim of the object or the corners. The decoration, almost exclusively in underglaze blue, can vary from a silvery blue to a deep cobalt colour. The museum houses an extremely rare dish decorated in polychrome enamels only.
Kraak wares and porcelain for the domestic market were produced in the same kilns. The technical aspects mentioned above were also found on other wares aboard the ships going West. Therefore form and decoration of Kraak porcelain should be taken into account as well.
When it comes to a definition of the ware with regard to these aspects, there is as yet no consensus among Western scholars. Chinese scholars generally agree that only wares exclusively made for the export, having non-Chinese shapes like the kraaikop, de klapmuts and the dishes with a flat rim, in combination with the panelled decoration, the typical Kraak style, are to be called Kraak porcelains. The closed forms usually lack the thin body but are regarded as Kraak wares because of their panelled decoration. Panelling was probably introduced shortly before 1595. The porcelains in this catalogue are selected on their technical aspects as well as their Kraak style decoration. The porcelains with a white cavetto and a flat rim bearing a continuous decoration, generally of a better quality, are grouped in the chapter on the 16th century (Ch. 2).
On flat wares the centre medallions are round, star-shaped or bracket-lobed, the sides can be painted with pomegranate-shaped panels, roundels, ogival or straight panels. Central motifs include deer in a landscape, waterfowl at a pond, auspicious symbols, vases on a terrace, and sometimes river scenes with human figures. Mythological animals like the dragon or the phoenix are occasionally seen. Kiln shards show that during all periods all types of designs were used. The late 16th and 17th century pieces are mostly of good quality. After 1610, when mass-production started, many good quality wares were made at the same time, as evidenced by shards, but also many common pieces. Good quality porcelains become rare after 1635.
Kraak porcelain is rarely marked. The egret mark has until now been found on 45 objects of flat ware, mostly of very good quality. Other marks seen on Kraak are the hare, the Jingzhi mark meaning well made object, the fu mark meaning good luck, the rare Macao mark and the reign marks of the emperors Chenghua and Wanli.
