Japanese wares with Western Designs 1653-1800

Object 2012173

Dish

Japan

c.1700

Height 29 mm (1.14 inch), diameter of rim 198 mm (7.80 inch), diameter of footring 112 mm (4.41 inch), weight 256 grams (9.03 ounce (oz.))

Dish on footring, flat rim with a moulded, wavy, edge in relief. On the base three spur-marks. Decorated in underglaze blue with a village with a church and houses, a lighthouse with trees, figures with a cow, and the poles with clouds. The slightly crimped rim is painted with a wave-scroll border. On the reverse three sprays of flowering branches. The low footring is encircled with a double concentric band.

This design on this dish has traditionally been called 'Deshima' or 'Scheveningen'. It certainly does not depict the Dutch factory in Deshima (Nagasaki), a fan-shaped, man-made island in Japan to which Westerners were restricted between 1641 and 1862. Scheveningen, a fishermen´s village on the Dutch coast near The Hague, is a more appropriate name. In fact 47 "Scheveningen" plates were already mentioned in the 1778 sale catalogue of the porcelain shop of Martha Raap in Amsterdam, clearly indicating this type. Research was undertaken to find the print that was used as a model, non with this view have come to light. it is therefore possible that another source was used, maybe a plate or dish in the so-called Frijtom style. This is the most common version of this design, later copied by the Chinese. The design, almost certainly copied from a drawing by Frederick van Frijtom (1652-1702), was highly popular in The Netherlands, and possibly also in Japan as a kind of Western exoticism. The rim design is unique in Chinese export porcelain and is almost certainly after a silver original. (Howard & Ayers 1978, vol. 1, pp.72-73), (Terwee 1989, pp.494-501), (Jörg 2003/1, p.240)

These dishes with the so called 'Deshima' or 'Scheveningen' design first appeared, in underglaze blue, on Japanese dishes of around c.1700. In the collection of the Groninger Museum is a blanc Chinese porcelain dish overdecorated in Delft (the Netherlands) c.1700-1730 with identical design. This dish is an original Japanese version. (Jörg 2003/1, cat. 307a)