Груз Императорского фарфора Китая с Ка Mao

The Ca Mau Porcelain Cargo. Made in Imperial China. Circa 1725

Груз Императорского фарфора с Ка Mao.

Груз с затонувшего приблизительно в 1725 году у берегов вьетнамского полуострова Ка Мао корабля был поднят в 1998-99 гг. вьетнамской государственной компанией. Масштабная морская археологическая экспедиция собрала много уникальной информации. Эта находка стала важным этапом в борьбе за создание целостной картины морской торговли в Азии в XVII в.

Стало очевидным, что корабль размером 23 на 8 метров направлялся на юго-восток, когда разгорелся пожар и корабль затонул. Основным грузом на корабле был великолепный фарфор из лучших печей Китая. Некоторые предметы имеют по нескольку характерных маркировок Цинского императора Юнчжена, правившего между 1723 и 1735 гг. Большая часть находок хранится в музеях Вьетнама. Небольшая часть была тайно продана на местном рынке, значительная часть была продана на аукционе Сотби в Амстердаме Правительством Вьетнама.

Все обнаруженные вещи составляют единый комплекс, таким образом, если можно определить точную датировку хотя бы одного предмета, может быть датирован и весь груз.

Транспортировка китайского фарфора в эпоху Ючженя осуществлялась по большей части китайскими купцами, корабли-джонки которых курсировали к Филиппинам, Индонезийскому архипелагу и побережьям Вьетнама, Таиланду и Малайзии. Сегодняшняя Джакарта, Батавия, находящаяся на острове Ява, была важным центром распространения фарфора. Голландская Ост-инская компания имела свои подразделения в этом городе, что привлекало сюда торговлю со всей Азии. Батавия служила и пунктом отправления кораблей, направлявшихся в Нидерланды. Именно здесь фарфор или отправлялся в Голландию, или направлялся в другие места, как, например, исламские рынки Индии и Ирана.

В начале XVIII в. чайная церемония становится чрезвычайно модной в Европе. Китай осуществляет основные поставки чая в европейские страны. В европейских столицах открываются специальные чайные дома. Оказывается, что для новой модной церемонии необходима особая посуда. В Европе того времени фарфора еще не было, он появится чуть позже. Служащим Ост-индских компаний, которые ведут торговые операции с Китаем, приходит в голову вместе с чаем привозить и чайный фарфор. Огромные количества фарфора, необходимые для удовлетворения колоссального спроса на него с тех пор, как он вошел в моду в Европе, перевозились из южного Китая в Батавию китайскими кораблями-джонками.

Корабль, затонувший около Ка Мао, направлялся в Батавию и большая часть груза предназначалась для Нидерландов? Об этом позволяют судить удивительные находки с корабля - набор блюд, на которых изображены пейзажи в западном стиле. Такой рисунок известен как «Шевенингенский узор» в честь одноименной деревеньки около Гааги в Нидерландах. Присутствие этих блюд на корабле дает возможность предположить, что большая часть фарфорового груза направлялась в Батавию. Ведь только голландцы ценили подобные специфические предметы, chine de command (фарфор на заказ). О связи с Голландией свидетельствуют и две пивные кружки, форма и узор которых основываются на голландской дельфтской манере.

Подставки для щеток, ложки и блюдца со свинцовой глазурью, курительницы фимиама, вазы, предметы, украшенные голубым и медно-красным цветом и покрытые глазурью вероятнее всего предназначались для сообществ китайских экспатриантов в Батавии или где-нибудь еще на Востоке. Очаровательные фигурки людей, зверей и кораблики могли продаваться где угодно.

Находки с Ка Мао ставят интригующие вопросы стиля. Часть груза выглядит именно так, как должен был выглядеть фарфор в эпоху Юнчженя. Это чайные сервизы с рисунком павильона с цветущими растениями, расписанные голубой краской и покрытые глазурью.

Или другие сервизы с типичным для эпохи Юнчженя узором, изображающим пейзаж с ивой и мальчика на буйволе в голубом цвете под глазурью.

Многие предметы имеют роспись, называемую «типичной росписью Хангси». Это, например, кайма из лотосов или идущая по дну полоса в форме гранатов, заполненных цветами. Такой же типичной характеристикой посуды эпохи Хангси приблизительно 1700 г. Является манера росписи подглазурным кобальтом, который можно увидеть на некоторых чайных чашках.

Другая загадка представлена блюдами с узором, напоминающим очень популярный когда-то в Голландии фарфор краак, который был вытеснен другими видами дизайнов. Вещи с подобным узором всегда рассматривались как наиболее ранние и типичные примеры фарфора на заказ для голландского рынка и датировались ранним периодом XVIIII в.

Группа предметов, состоящая из мисок, курительниц и баночек, украшенных голубой подглазурью медно-красной краской с сосновыми деревьями, цветущими сливами и пейзажами ассоциируются с производством в эпоху Хангси.

Стилистически характеристики части груза полностью соответствуют стилю эпохи Хангси. Другую часть груза можно датировать более поздним периодом эпохи Хангси 1700 -20 гг. Ученые пришли к выводу, что корабль отправился в плавание после 1723 г., когда Юнчжен стал преемником Хангси.

Цзиндэнжень, веками бывший центром фарфорового производства, состоял из сотен маленьких мастерских, в которых производился и расписывался фарфор. Самые передовые из этих мастерских производили фарфор для двора императора, и именно это служило стандартом качества, формы и рисунка для менее крупных мастерских. Мастерские, производившие фарфор на экспорт, должны были работать так, чтобы товар выглядел привлекательным для иностранных клиентов. Они часто делали специальные вещи на заказ и не производили товар для местного рынка. Имела место чрезвычайная специализация, когда одна мастерская делала только чайники на экспорт, а другая - чашки и блюдца. Можно предположить, что, будучи маленькими и специализированными, такие мастерские не были первыми последователями модных тенденций в разукрашивании фарфора, которые выдвигали более крупные и важные фабрики. Весьма возможно, они продолжали работать так, как работали годами, лишь постепенно привыкая к новым веяниям и новым темам в росписях. Это и объясняет разные стили в росписях груза с Ка Мао: часть вещей была сделана мастерскими, уже переключившимися на новые образцы эпохи Юнчженя, а часть - мастерскими, продолжавшими работать в стиле поздней эпохи Хангси.

Можно сделать предположение, что в течении пары лет различия между этими двумя стилями нивелировались и в области экспорта возобладал новый модный стиль, заменив традиционные росписи и узоры эпохи Хангси. Если принять эту гипотезу за основу, тогда тот факт, что груз с Ка Мао содержит такие разнообразные наборы вещей, перевозившиеся вместе, может указывать на то, что все эти вещи были изготовлены в раннюю эпоху Юнженя, т.е. приблизительно в 1725 г., т.к. груз более позднего периода был бы менее разнообразным и содержал бы больше вещей в стиле эпохи Юнчжена.

Подводя итоги, можно сказать, что груз с Ка Мао состоит из китайского фарфора, произведенного в самых известных печах Джингдезхена, Дехуа и Гуанчжоу, и и датируемого периодом правления императора Юнчжена (1723-1735).

Этот фарфор высоко ценился покупателями, как в Юго-Восточной Азии, так и в Европе.

Часть предметов была сделана специально на заказ с европейскими мотивами для того, чтобы удовлетворить спрос на фарфоровую чайную посуду в Европе.

The Ca Mau Porcelain Cargo

The Ca Mau shipwreck was salvaged in 1998/9 by the Vietnam Salvage Company (Visal) off the coast of Ca Mau Province in southern Vietnam after two fishermen found Chinese porcelain objects in the vicinity. An extensive maritime archaeological expedition yielded much unique information. It was clear that the vessel, measuring about 23 by 8 metres, was heading south-east when it caught fire and sank. Unfortunately, most of the timber had rotted, and the remaining fragments were insufficient for the origin of the ship to be established with any certainty. In all, about 130.000 pieces of porcelain were retrieved from the site, indicating that porcelain was the main cargo. Some pieces bear the four or six-character mark of the Qing emperor Yongzheng, regnant between 1723 and 1735 (lots XX-XX). This establishes an ante quem date for these objects: they cannot have been made before 1723 when Yongzheng succeeded his father, Emperor Kangxi, who reigned from 1662 to 1722.

Besides porcelain, a small number of other objects were found: a lamp shaped as a lotus flower, a basin, a lampshade, a covered box and a lock with matching key, all made of bronze; some copper coins of the Kangxi reign; a bone hairpin; fragments of textiles including a small bundle of silk; an oval talisman of stone with a carved tiger’s head; a rectangular black inkstone; a rectangular stone tablet; two soapstone seals and the remains of many iron woks. Blocks of stone and 386 ingots of zinc weighing between 15 and 18 kilograms provided ballast.

Most of the find is preserved in Vietnamese museums, including the unique pieces. A small part was clandestinely marketed locally, while a substantial amount, representing almost all types and varieties found in the shipwreck, is now being auctioned by Sotheby’s Amsterdam on behalf of the Vietnamese government.

Like every shipwreck, the Ca Mau should be regarded as a time capsule full of information, allowing maritime archaeologists and historians to reconstruct its historical context. The ship and its contents comprise a sealed entity, affected only by its long immersion in the sea. All objects recovered belonged together when the ship sank and if only one piece can be dated with certainty, the whole cargo can be dated. To this end we have several pieces of porcelain bearing the Yongzheng mark. The nature of the porcelain cargo – which will be discussed in the following paragraphs – allows us to state that it is unlikely that the shipment took place after Yongzheng’s death in 1735. This cargo was thus shipped during Yongzheng’s reign.

The Ca Mau is no exception to other shipwrecks in that its porcelain cargo also offers many surprises, poses new questions and shatters some well-established opinions about stylistic developments and the production of Chinese export ware.

Let us first see what the cargo tells us about the destination of the ship and the markets for which the porcelain was intended.

It is remarkable that all additional finds such as the seals and the bronze objects indicate that the ship’s crew was Asian, not European. The transport of Chinese porcelain in the Yongzheng period was undertaken almost exclusively by Chinese merchants, their junks plying the Philippine and Indonesian archipelagos and the coasts of Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. Batavia, present-day Jakarta, on the island of Java, was an important market and distribution centre for porcelain. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) had its administrative and commercial headquarters in this city, attracting merchandise from all over Asia. Batavia functioned partly as a pivot for further inter-Asian trade and partly as the point of departure for ships returning to the Netherlands. Here porcelain was either transferred to Dutch and other ships supplying Islamic markets in India, Indonesia and Iran, or became part of cargoes destined for Europe. Contrary to what has generally been assumed, the VOC did not participate in the porcelain trade to Europe during the first quarter of the eighteenth century. The Company ceased buying Chinese porcelain in the 1690s because it had become unprofitable, leaving the supply of the Dutch market to private merchants who shipped porcelain from Batavia to the Netherlands on Company ships and who obviously took full advantage of this privileged position. They were fiercely competitive and they flooded the Netherlands – and hence western Europe – with huge and greatly varied quantities of underglaze-blue and polychrome porcelain of excellent quality. The porcelain cargo of the Vung Tau shipwreck, also salvaged off the coast of Vietnam and dating to the 1690s, testifies to the early phase of these private investments in the porcelain trade. The enormous quantities needed to meet the huge demand after porcelain became fashionable in Europe were transported from southern China to Batavia by Chinese junks. Occasionally, Dutchmen and other Westerners may privately have joined the Chinese crew, but certainly no VOC ships sailed to China in the early eighteenth century to buy porcelain in Canton or Amoy. It was much more convenient to order an assortment, even porcelain with special decorations, through a Chinese junk captain, have him relay the order to the porcelain workshops at Jingdezhen in Jiangxi Province, and wait until the objects were delivered to Batavia. All risk in this procedure was for the Chinese, the Dutch paid no transport costs and competition kept prices low. The VOC only resumed its trade in porcelain in 1729 when it started sailing directly from the Netherlands to Canton and back, thereby undermining the junk trade to Batavia.

How do we know that the Ca Mau was destined for Batavia and that a major part of the cargo was for the Netherlands? One surprising find from the shipwreck is a series of dishes of different sizes, decorated in underglaze blue with a landscape in Western style (lots XX–XX). We see a hilly foreground with fence-posts, a tree, two walking people wearing hats and another man with a cow on a leash. In the background is a square building on a hill, a church tower, the roofs of houses, and in the centre, ships’ sails. Curiously-formed clouds with curlicue outlines float in the air. The flat rim is painted monochrome blue with a continuous pattern of waves around the edge. This decoration, known as the ‘Scheveningen design’ after the coastal village of that name near The Hague in The Netherlands, depicts sand dunes, a beacon to warn approaching ships, the village itself and ships’ sails in the harbour. Japanese porcelain dishes with this design made in Arita for the Dutch in circa 1700 or slightly later are known. Japanese porcelain painters used a Dutch print or a piece of Delft faience as a model and apparently these ‘Scheveningen’ dishes were so popular that Chinese potters copied them in order to compete with the Japanese. Such Chinese copies were already known, but their occurrence in the Ca Mau makes it likely that these dishes, and therefore most of the porcelain cargo, were destined for Batavia because only the Dutch would appreciate such specific chine de commande pieces.

There is another, similar Japanese connection to the Ca Maucargo, namely a couple of dishes decorated in underglaze blue, the centre with branches with large leaves and fruit, the rim divided into wide and narrow panels containing flowers and auspicious symbols or a geometric pattern (lot XX). Here, too, the Chinese potters competitively copied a well-known Japanese type traditionally produced for the Dutch.

Final proof of a Dutch connection – and thus Batavia as the destination of the Ca Mau– is provided by the tall beer mugs with handles, decorated in blue with a so-called lambrequin border around the foot and neck. The shapes and decorations of these beer mugs are based on Dutch Delftware models decorated with this lambrequin pattern derived from the Chinese ru-yi (cloud) motif.

The cargo was thus destined for Batavia, but not all porcelain was to be trans-shipped to the Netherlands. Smaller consignments were clearly for other markets: the kendis (lot XX), ewers (lot XX) and the deep, conical bowls with a decoration of lotus in blue would have appealed to Islamic clients. The covered round boxes (lots XX–XX), the relatively coarse bowls with a blue decoration of scrollwork and flowers (lots XX–XX) and the small covered cylindrical pots (lots XX–XX) will have been suitable merchandise for the Indonesian Islands. Brush rests (lot XX), ladles and dishes with a lead glaze and impressed designs (lots XX–XX), incense burners (lot XX), the celadons (lots XX–XX) and possibly the pieces decorated in underglaze blue and copper red (lots XX–XX) were probably destined for expatriate Chinese communities in Batavia and elsewhere in the East. The charming figures of men, animals and boats (lots XX–XX) could be sold everywhere.

The Ca Mau raises intriguing questions about stylistic development. Part of the cargo conforms exactly to established concepts of what porcelain from the Yongzheng period should look like. Tea sets, for instance, have a fine and detailed decoration of a pavilion with a fence and a jar with flowering plants on the terrace, originally painted in underglaze blue and enamels. Due to the long immersion in sea-water, the enamelled decoration has disappeared and the imprint is only visible when viewing the object from a specific angle (lots XX–XX). Other tea sets with a Yongzheng-type decoration show a landscape with a willow and a boy riding a buffalo in underglaze blue (lots XX–XX). These sets consist of cups and saucers, tea caddies, teapots and milk jugs with matching pattipans (saucers to put them on). Some cups have handles; the tea caddies have a foot with a tendril-scroll in relief. Several other types of teacups and saucers, not part of a set, are decorated with landscapes or river scenes with buildings, or people engaged in a variety of activities. Other cups and saucers depict episodes from the highly popular romance The Western Chamber, or a strolling Immortal. These figural scenes cover almost the entire surface and are surrounded by a narrow border. Some Yongzheng-type dishes and plates have a design of flowering plants by a rock or a fence, or a bird perched on a rock, filling the centre, combined with a border of wide-spreading flower sprays or blossoming branches.

Many pieces, however, have decorations called ‘typical Kangxi’. One feature, for instance, is a border of lotus or pomegranate-shaped panels moulded in low relief and filled with flowers, or a border with separate small panels on a dense ground of geometric patterns. The decoration in the centre of other Kangxi-style pieces is arranged around a central roundel with radiating panels in the centre and/or on the sides. Many variations of such panelled designs, characteristic of the Kangxi period, are present in the Ca Mau cargo. Equally characteristic of Kangxi wares of circa 1700 is a way of painting in underglaze cobalt blue that was not done in washes, but used parallel lines to fill in the contours; see, for instance, the flower pattern on the small covered jars or on some of the teapots.

Another enigma is represented by dishes with a design resembling that of kraak porcelain from the first half of the seventeenth century. The centre has a star-like panel with flowering plants, surrounded by half-round panels with geometric patterns, while the border is divided into wide and narrow panels filled with flowers and symbols. Once very popular in the Netherlands, it is assumed that this kraak pattern enjoyed a short-lived revival around 1700, but was soon replaced by other designs. The same applies to the motif of the bird on the ‘haystack’ on cups and saucers (lot XX). It shows a house with a construction on either side of it on which a bird is perched. A flowering plant floats above the building; the border has a continuous pattern of linked leaves. It has always been regarded as an early and typical example of chine de commande for the Dutch market, dating to the early eighteenth century.

Furthermore, the entire group of bowls, incense burners and jars decorated in underglaze blue and copper red with pine trees, blossoming prunus and landscapes is usually associated with a Kangxi production, as are the bowls covered with streaks of green and yellow glaze, called ‘egg and spinach’. The figures, water droppers and incense holders shaped as animals and mostly enamelled on the biscuit (unglazed) surface traditionally have a strong Kangxi connotation as well.

How can we explain this discrepancy in styles? The stylistic characteristics of part of the cargo conform exactly to the style of the Yongzheng period, but another part we would like to date to the later Kangxi period of 1700–20. Nonetheless, we have concluded that the cargo was shipped after 1723 when Yongzheng had taken over from Kangxi.

The number of Kangxi-style pieces is too large to be incidental – they constitute roughly half the cargo. This leaves us with two possible scenarios, neither of which can be proved because of the lack of documentation.

The first is the assumption that the Ca Mau cargo partly consisted of leftovers that had been stored by porcelain merchants in southern China for ten or twenty years. I find this an unlikely hypothesis and not in line with normal procedures in the porcelain trade. There was great demand for porcelain in the West, competition was fierce and any remainders from specially ordered assortments would most likely have been sold to other parties as soon as possible. Piles of unsold porcelain used up storage space, were prone to damage, and are contrary to the way Chinese merchants did business.

The other possibility I suggest here has to do with the organisation of porcelain production. Jingdezhen, for centuries the centre of porcelain production in the north of Jiangxi Province, comprised hundreds – if not thousands – of small, privately-owned workshops where porcelain was made and painted. Foremost were the workshops that produced for the Imperial Court and these set the standards for quality, shape and decoration that ultimately served as models for lesser workshops. Workshops producing for export had to make porcelain that appealed to foreign clients and often made special pieces to order, and did not manufacture objects for the domestic market as well. It seems that an extreme specialisation took place whereby one workshop only made teapots for export, another only cups and saucers. Decorations, applied in the same workshop where the pieces were made or in a separate painter’s workshop, may have been similarly specialised. The output of these workshops was fired in large kilns, where space could be bought from the owners. The manufacturers or the owners did not distribute the final product themselves, but used licensed brokers who made deals with the Chinese porcelain merchants who placed the orders. Being small and specialised, it is conceivable that workshops making export wares were not the first to follow the fashions in decoration introduced by the larger, more important factories. It is quite possible that they continued as they had done for years, only slowly adapting to new styles and new subjects in painting when their product became really old-fashioned and merchants and brokers complained. This would explain the different styles of decoration in the Ca Mau cargo – some was made by workshops that had already shifted to the new Yongzheng modes and some was produced by workshops that continued producing the late Kangxi styles.

It may be assumed that within a couple of years the differences between the two styles diminished and that modern fashions took over for export wares as well, replacing the traditional Kangxi decorations and patterns. If this is correct – and the above is only an undocumented hypothesis – then the fact that the Ca Mau cargo contains such a varied assortment, loaded and transported together, could indicate that all these porcelain pieces were produced early in the Yongzheng period, say circa 1725, because a cargo of later date would have been less varied and there would have been more Yongzheng-style pieces.

To conclude, the Ca Mau cargo offers a wide variety of beautiful pieces for different markets, it poses some interesting questions and adds greatly to our knowledge of the inter-Asian porcelain trade in the Yongzheng period.

Professor Dr. Christiaan J.A. Jörg (1944) is former curator of the Groninger Museum, Groningen, and is professor in East-West interactions in decorative art at Leiden University. He lectures widely and has been extensively published on Chinese and Japanese export porcelain and lacquer.