Sold Ceramics - Sold Kraak Porcelain wares 1570-1645 - Bowls - Page 1

Object 2012027

Bowl

China

1630-1645

Height 151 mm (5.95 inch), diameter of rim 337 mm (13.27 inch), diameter of footring 144 mm (5.67 inch), weight 2,657 grams (93.72 ounce (oz.))

Bowl on footring, straight rim with foliated edge. Kiln sand adhering to the inner footring. Decorated in underglaze blue with a riverscape with houses, trees and figures in a central medallion surrounded by a broad floral scroll border. Both in- and outside walls are divided in six large and six narrow panels. The large panels have a floral scroll border, three are filled with Chinese figures and river scenes with houses and trees, the other three are filled with Iznik-like flowers, the narrow panels are filled with tulips and flowers. Above the footring a broad floral scroll border.

According to Rinaldi this bowl can be classified as a Shape VI.3 bowl with Transitional features (c.1635-1650). The shape and body of these bowls comply with kraak characteristics, yet their decoration has adopted features typical of the Transitional style: it is much more elaborate and stylized and includes narrative scenes with figures as well as Dutch flowers, tulips and Iznik style flowers. The centre medallions offer a very wide selection of motifs, either typically Chinese or with European influence. The broad border around the centre medallion is decorated with a variety of motifs, like simple or floral scrolls, palmettes and semicircles. Both inside and outside walls are divided in large and narrow panels from three to six each. The large panels have a border with scrolls or vegetal motifs and are usually filled with extremely stylized and thinly-drawn flowers with Iznik influence or with European houses with Chinese figures. The narrow panels are filled with tulips and thinly-drawn flowers with Iznik influence. These bowls are an exact parallel with Border IX dishes and should be dated accordingly: 1635-1650. Curiously, while there are several Border IX dishes in the Topkapi Saray, there are no bowls with Transitional features. This would indicate that the production was mainly intended for the Dutch home market where most of these bowls are still to be found today. (Rinaldi 1989, pp.163-164)

Although the manufacture and the division into panels are still in kraak style, the decoration is Transitional, in particular the use of the 'tulip' motif. It has been suggested that the spinner and the houses were derived from European prints and drawings, but there is no evidence for this as yet. (Jörg 1984, pp.54-55, cat. 11 & Jörg 2011/1, pp.144-145, cat. 40)

For identically shaped, sized and decorated with the riverscape motif bowls, please see:

For another identically shaped and sized bowl, decorated with 'the Spinner'' motif, please see:

Sold Ceramics - Sold Kraak Porcelain wares 1570-1645 - Bowls - Page 1 - Object 2011834.

For another identically shaped and sized bowl that on the outer wall is decorated with a continuous landscape scene with various figures in a typical Chinese style but on the inside is decorated with the same large and narrow panels filled with European houses with Chinese figures and tulips and thinly-drawn flowers with Iznik influence, please see:

Oosterse keramiek uit Groninger kollekties,exhibition catalogue Groninger Museum, (C.J.A. Jörg, Martinipers/Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen 1982). p.45, cat. 61.

Another extremely rare, unusually large Dutch (Delft) faience bowl closely follows a Chinese model in shape and size, but the panels are decorated with Chinoiseries composed of exotic Chinese decorative elements rendered in a personal, Western way by the painter in Delft, please see:

Austrumu porcellans un Niderlande. Austrumu un Rietumu mijiedarbiba 17. gadsimta / Oriental Porcelain and the Netherlands. Interaction between East and West in the 17th century, (C.J.A. Jörg, Art Museum Riga Bourse, Riga, 2011), pp. 146-147, cat. 41.

Condition: Some glaze rough spots to the rim, two hairlines and two re-stuck pieces to the wall.

References:

Lunsingh Scheurleer 1981, cat. 73

Jörg 1982/2, cat. 61

Jörg 1983, cat. 11

Jörg 1984, cat. 11

Rinaldi 1989, pp.163-164, Pl.203

Jörg 2011/1, cat. 40 & 41

MacGuire 2023, cat. 193

Price: Sold.