Home > The Princessehof collection of Asian ceramics > Chinese and Japanese trade ceramics > 7. Early Kangxi porcelain (c. 1660 - 1700)
Home > The Princessehof collection of Asian ceramics > Chinese and Japanese trade ceramics > 7. Early Kangxi porcelain (c. 1660 - 1700)
When emperor Kangxi (1662-1722), the second emperor of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), succeeded to the throne at the age of eight, the land was still in turmoil and strong opposition. After Li Zicheng, leader of the revolutionary Manchu movement, had conquered the imperial capital Beijing in 1644, progress of the new dynasty further south had been slow. The Zheng family, an extremely influential private trade association which supported independence of the southern regions of China, had prevented the Qing from gaining ground. They commanded a good part of the trade going to Japan, Formosa, the Philippines and Batavia.
The first Qing emperor Shunzhi (1644-1661) had declared maritime junk traffic illegal. Although controls over this decree were impossible, it was the cause of increasing insecurity in all southern regions, including along the supply-lines of porcelain from Jingdezhen. As a result export harbours no longer received goods from inland China on an regular basis.
In 1662 emperor Kangxi decreed that all settlements on a strip along the coast should be evacuated. The order was intended to eliminate the political base of the independence movement by impeding all economic traffic. This ban not only covered the coastal provinces on the mainland but also on the innumerable islands off-shore, including Formosa (Taiwan) where the Dutch had just been expelled from their settlement, fort Zeelandia, by Zheng Chenggong (Coxinga), a Zheng family member. In the final years of the Ming dynasty the kilns at Jingdezhen had continued production even though imperial orders had come to a halt and export trade had diminished. During the first Qing reign court orders were being fulfilled again. In the Rebellion of the Three Feudatories, however, three provinces rebelled against their Manchu commanders, destroying Jingdezhen in 1675 by pillaging or burning the industrial facilities and chasing away or killing the potters.
The kilns were reconstructed under supervision of Zang Yingxuan who was appointed by the emperor. He was an able man with knowledge of local affairs. Modernised facilities, an experienced labour force, and government support for innovative productions made the porcelain industry successful within a few years. The Japanese porcelain on the market constituted a competitive force, but the quantities the Japanese kilns were able to produce remained short of the demand and the porcelain was more expensive than the Chinese wares. Chinese porcelain would reappear on the international market without many problems.
In the early 1680s the emperor lifted the ban on maritime trade and the junk trade from the south coast of China started again instantly. The amount of porcelain found in the wreck of a junk that went down after a fire at Vung Tau in Vietnam on its way to Batavia in the 1690s may serve as an indication of the volume contained in one shipment.
The Batavian trade was essential to the VOC as all goods were brought to Batavia by Chinese junks. This limited the risks involved for the Company and offered at the same time profits from the taxes imposed upon the Chinese traders. The private trade to Holland prospered. All kinds of objects, mostly small and exclusive, were taken to the home country by crew or private traders. At the end of the 1680s this private trade began to endanger the Companys own orders and after 1694 the Heeren XVII, the directors of the VOC, decided to abandon completely the trade in porcelain. Henceforth all porcelain entered Holland through private trade. This would continue until 1729 when the VOC entered the direct China trade.
This chapter concentrates on Kangxi porcelain for the southeast Asian market and the Middle East. Important new products in Jingdezhen were large dishes and jars. They were very popular in these areas. The Princessehof museum houses a substantial number of such dishes, all collected in Indonesia and dating from the Kangxi reign prior to 1700. Most dishes are saucer-shaped and have a sturdy footring with a channel in it. This type of footring is seen until about 1680. Many dishes are marked on the base with an emblem within a double ring, the artemisia leaf, the lingzhi fungus and the conch-shell being among the most popular ones.
Underglaze blue decorations on this ware include an overall floral pattern or a formal design of palmette motifs with flaming outlines. In the collection is a beautiful example of the so-called Master of the Rocks style in which rocks are rendered with many parallel lines to suggest volume and solidity. Dishes with polychrome decoration are painted in the so-called famille verte palette, a 19th century name originating in France for a group of porcelains painted with translucent enamels, the green enamel dominating. They show a rather crude and simple, boldly painted floral design, overall or in registers or borders. Floral patterns, both in underglaze blue and polychrome or a combination were very much in demand in southeast Asia.
