Abstract
Spanish interest in Chinese exotic products was clear from the very beginning of colonization of the Philippines in 1571, when access to the sources of supply became much easier through the Manila galleon trade. However, only a few pieces of Chinese porcelain for Spain dating to the Habsburg period (1517–1700) are preserved in private or non-Spanish collections. This presents a stark contrast to King Philip II’s collection of Chinese porcelain, which in its day was the largest in Europe. Sadly, nothing is known to have survived from that great collection, which held a little more than 3000 pieces, and although the inventories of some Spanish Habsburg monarchs, noblemen, and other individuals reveal that some of them had considerable amounts of Chinese porcelain, other great Spanish collectors of the period had no interest in Chinese porcelain at all. This article will examine the occurrence of Chinese porcelain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Spain through key records in different Spanish archives in order to establish the concept, reception, appreciation, use, and monetary value attributed to Chinese porcelain in the general context of the decorative arts in Spain.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
This porcelain was collected by King Manuel I of Portugal (1469–1521) and his successors together with the later owners of the palace, the Lencastre family.
- 2.
Catherine of Austria, wife of John III of Portugal, had many pieces of porcelain in her guardaroba and often sent porcelain as gifts to her family. See Annemarie Jordan, “The Development of Catherine of Austria’s Collection in the Queen’s Household: Its Character and Cost” (PhD diss., Brown University, 1994) and by the same author “Verdadero padre y señor: Catherine of Austria, Queen of Portugal,” in Los Inventarios de Carlos V y La Familia Imperial, vol. 3, ed. Fernando Checa Cremades (Madrid: Fernando Villaverde Ediciones, 2010).
- 3.
Teresa Canepa, Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer: China and Japan and their Trade with Western Europe and the New World 1500–1644, A Survey of Documentary and Material Evidence, (Leiden: Universiteit Leiden, 2016), 128–46.
- 4.
For the king’s full inventory of Chinese porcelain, see Francisco Javier Sánchez Cantón, Inventarios Reales: Bienes Muebles que pertenecieron a Felipe II, vol. 2, (Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1956–59), 265–80.
- 5.
- 6.
See Krahe, “Chinese Porcelain in Spain,” 32. For the latest research on these bottles, see William R. Sargent, Porcelana china en la colección Conde (Madrid: Ediciones El Viso, 2014), 112–3; Rocío Díaz, Porcelana china para España (London: Jorge Welsh, 2010), 74–9.
- 7.
For a recent survey of such pieces, see William R. Sargent, Treasures of Chinese Export Ceramics from the Peabody Essex Museum (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 56–60 and Sargent, Porcelana china en la Colección Conde, 114–5.
- 8.
See dish with the coato farms of Don García Hurtado de Mendoza, IV Marquis of Cañete, Viceroy of Peru, in a private collection, USA, in Díaz, Porcelana China para España, 87–91.
- 9.
This paper contains material from my PhD thesis “Chinese Porcelain and other Orientalia and Exotica in Spain during the Habsburg dynasty,” directed by Professor Dr. Christiaan Jörg and defended on September 18, 2014, at Leiden University. Cinta Krahe, “Chinese Porcelain and other Orientalia and Exotica in Spain during the Habsburg dynasty” (PhD diss., Leiden University, 2014), accessed July 24, 2017, http://hdl.handle.net/1887/28741. See also the publication of the thesis: Cinta Krahe, Chinese Porcelain in Habsburg Spain (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica, 2016).
- 10.
Translation by Cinta Krahe: “Addressing what your Noble Sire disposed regarding commerce//with New Spain in the Philippine Islands, yesterday Don Christobal de Mora and I met and looked at a long list that Ledesma had taken from many papers//that both parties had sent each other and from a chapter of a letter for your Noble Sire from the//Viceroy Don Martin Enriquez written on twentieth of March//of the last year eighty where he says that the merchants of//that land were very sorry that merchandise had been brought//from the Philippine Islands because although the satins and damasks and other//silks, and even the finest [silks], contain very little silk and [have] other fabrics woven [into them]//with grassy fibres (all valueless) in the end people would bargain //and lower the prices of the silks that leave [i.e. come from] Spain, and of these silks the// taffetas had been sold at a price of more than eight reales and the // satins and damasks had gone down a lot, and fearing that were this to go // further it would not be necessary to take silks from Spain and that// other than that everything that is (not) traded with those islands is trinkets (bugerías) //that have no useful purpose on this earth, such as porcelains, writing deks (scriptorillos), small boxes, fans and straps for shields , all counterfeited and useless, // and that there can be not trade with China except (in exchange) for gold// and silver because all the rest is futile.” Archivo General de Indias, Filipinas 18, AR 8, N 53, 1586.
- 11.
Bugerias (Bujerias or buxerias): “This term is generally used in the plural form. Things of low price or value, albeit of good taste and made with care and grace and that are usually given to ladies and children. Comes from the Latin buxumor Castilian box, because such objects were usually carved from wood.” Diccionario de la lengua castellana, facsimile of the original edition of 1726–1737, vol. 1 (Madrid: Real Academia Española, 1979), 722.
- 12.
Tomé Pinheiro da Veiga, Fastiginia: Vida cotidiana en la corte de Valladolid (Valladolid: Ámbito ediciones, 1989), 105.
- 13.
“A transparent clay used to make vessels of different shapes. It comes from China and the material it is made of is said to take a long time to mature. In Italy there is a type of clay that some call puscelana, because it can be found in Puçol [referring to the town of Pozzuoli and the vessels made of volcanic ash from Vesuvius]; some people have corrupted the word and call it porcelana.” Sebastian de Covarrubias, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española (Madrid: 1611), accessed July 24, 2017, http//fondonsdigitales.us.es/fondos/libros/765/16/tesoro-de-la-lengua-castellana-o-española/.
- 14.
“A certain type of fine, transparent, clear and lustrous ceramic that is extensively made in China or Japan. Covarrubias mentions that porcelain was applied to a certain type of clay from Puçol [Pozzuoli], a city of the kingdom of Naples, from which the term derives, but it seems likely that the term comes from the French term porcelaine, a type of white shell from which the ancient people shaped containers very similar to our present porcelain. [2.] A type of wide deep cup made of fine clay that is used to serve sweets, clear soups, milk and other things. [3.] What should taste better, tell me: to drink poisoned sweet milk from a porcelain cup or to know it in advance and spill it? […] In the countryside, friends, sisters and women with bunches of flowers attended, holding porcelains full of aromatic beverages. [4.] White enamel, mixed with a little blue that is used by silversmiths to decorate jewelry and pieces of gold. [5.] White color mixed with blue. Latin: Color porcellaneus.” Real Academia Española, Diccionario de Autoridades, vol. 3 (Madrid: Gredos, 1979), 325.
- 15.
Anastasio Rojo Vega, El siglo de Oro: Inventario de una época (Salamanca: Junta de Castilla y León, 1996), 64–70.
- 16.
Almudena Pérez de Tudela Gabaldón, “La educación artística y la configuración de la imagen del príncipe Felipe,” in La monarquía de Felipe III: La Corte, vol. 3, ed. José Martínez Millán and Maria Antonietta Visceglia (Madrid: Fundación Mafre, 2008), 127.
- 17.
“Porcelana, specifically means a cup or a bowl and loza is the general term that [the Portuguese] give all objects that we call porcelana.” Pere d’Dentrecolles, Cartas edificantes y curiosas, escritas de las misiones estrangeras, y de levante por algunos missioneros de la compañía de Jesus traducidas por el padre Diego Davin de la misma Compañía, vol. 8 (Madrid: Viuda de Manuel Fernández, 1753–1757), 69–70.
- 18.
See, for example, several documents in the General Archive of the Indies (AGI). For 1596: “Two bowls of pottery from China (Dos escudillas de barro de la China),” AGI, Contratación, n°1 (Veracruz: 1799), fols. 94v–95v. For 1591: “A crate of pottery from China (Una caxa de loça de la China),” and “ Sixteen medium-sized porcelains from China and 12 smaller bowls (Diez y seis porcelanas medianas de la China e doze escudillas mas pequeñas),” AGI, Contratación, 2490, registro n°9, cuaderno 12, ramo 2, (Veracruz: 1795), fols. 51–100.
- 19.
Zhangzhou, the so-called Swatow wares, were elaborated in the Zhangzhou kilns (Fujian province) from the middle of the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century. It was decorated over gray porcelaneous stoneware using different techniques such as blue and white, polychrome enamels etc.
- 20.
Japanese term meaning “gold brocade,” indicating porcelain ornamented over the glaze or enamel with gold leaf.
- 21.
However, what is quite surprising is the lack of shards of better quality polychrome porcelain of the kinrande type in Spain—there is only one piece in the monastery of San Clemente, Seville—especially when there are so many descriptions of gilt porcelain in the inventories. See Krahe, Chinese Porcelain in Habsburg Spain, 193. For the latest research into these types of wares, see Linda Rosenfeld Pomper, “New Perspectives on Kinrande,” Arts of Asia 44 (September–October 2014): 73–82.
- 22.
This cup has been connected to a few shards of another bowl excavated at the Spanish town of Santa Elena on Parris Island, present day South Carolina, occupied from 1566 to 1576 and also to shards of a blue-and-white bowl recovered from the Spanish shipwreck San Felipe (1576). Therefore, the bowl in Daroca can be dated by stylistic comparison to the late Longqing (1567–1572) or early Wanli (1573–1620) reign. See Canepa Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer, 168.
- 23.
Carmen Yuste López, El comercio de la Nueva España con Filipinas, 1590–1785 (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1984), 26.
- 24.
Marina Alfonso Mola, “La carrera de Indias,” in El Galeón de Manila, exhibition catalogue, ed. Marina Alfonso Mola and Carlos Martínez Shaw (Madrid: Ministerio de Educación Cultura y Deporte, 2000), 29.
- 25.
I am grateful to José Luis Gasch-Tomás for the information taken from his unpublished article “Southeast Asia and New Spain in the making of World History: The Manila Galleons and the Circulation of Asian Goods in the Hispanic Empire, c. 1565–1650” (Paper presented at Encounters, Circulations and Conflicts, Fourth European Congress on World and Global History, Paris, September 2014).
- 26.
See Krahe, Chinese Porcelain in Habsburg Spain, 26–33.
- 27.
See George Kuwayama, “Archaeological Excavations of Chinese Ceramics Transported by Manila Galleons,” in Chinese Ceramics in Colonial México, ed. George Kuwayama (Los Angeles: Hawaii University Press, 1997), 20–2.
- 28.
For the latest research into Japanese and Chinese porcelain in Holland, see Jan van Campen and Titus Eliëns, ed., Chinese and Japanese Porcelain for the Dutch Golden Age (Zwolle: Waanders Uitgevers, 2014).
- 29.
See Linda R. Shulsky, “Philip II of Spain as porcelain collector,” Oriental Art XLIV, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 51–4.
- 30.
Isabella Clara Eugenia took about 300 pieces from her father’s porcelain collection when she was appointed Governess of the Southern Low Countries. See Almudena Pérez de Tudela, “Making, Collecting, Displaying and Exchanging Objects: An Overview of Archival Sources Relating to the Infanta Isabel’s Personal Possessions (1566–1599),” in Isabella Clara Eugenia: Female Sovereignty at the Courts in Madrid and Brussels, ed. Cordula van Wyhe (Madrid: Centro de Estudios de Europa Hispánica, 2011), 60–87.
- 31.
“When infanta Catherine Michelle settled in Torino in 1585, her sister Isabella Clara Eugenia often sent her presents, including Oriental exotica of which they were both fond. When court jester Gonzalo de Liaño departed for Turin in 1587, he carried a load of objects that included búcaros, porcelains, silks, fans, cordovans, gloves and perfumes.” Almudena Pérez de Tudela, “Regalos y retratos: Los años de la infanta Catalina Micaela en la corte de Madrid (1567–1584),” in L’infanta Caterina d’Austria, duchessa di Savoia (1567–1597), ed. Blyte Alice Raviola and Franca Varallo (Rome: Carocci, 2013), 130.
- 32.
See Cinta Krahe, “El coleccionismo de porcelana china: de curiosidad real a mercadería de exportación,” in Orientando la Mirada: Arte Asiático en las colecciones públicas madrileñas, exhibition catalogue, ed. Grupo de Investigación Arte de Asia (Madrid: Conde Duque, 2009), 31.
- 33.
Almudena Pérez de Tudela, “The Third Duke of Alba: Collector and Patron of the Arts,” in Alba, General and Servant to the Crown, ed. M. Ebben, M. Lacy-Bruijn and R. van Hövell tot Westerflier (Rotterdam: Karwansaray, 2013), 186.
- 34.
Margarita Pérez Grande, Los plateros de Toledo en 1626 (Toledo: Instituto Provincial de Investigaciones y Estudios Toledanos, 2002), 30–1, footnote 4.
- 35.
Javier Portús Pérez, “Que están vertiendo claveles,” Revista Espacio, Tiempo y Forma: Historia del Arte Series VII 6 (1993): 262.
- 36.
The inventory of goods of Queen Maria of Orleáns (Doña Maria Luisa de Borbon or Orleáns), Archivo General de Palacio, Madrid, Sección Registros, no. 5269, 1689.
- 37.
See, for example, the painting by Antonio Pereda (1611–1678), Still Life with an Ebony and Marquetry Table Cabinet, c. 1652, the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.
- 38.
See Krahe, Chinese Porcelain in Habsburg Spain, 386–7.
- 39.
For the Duke of Lerma’s full inventory of goods, see Luis Cervera Vera, Bienes muebles en el Palacio Ducal de Lerma (Valencia: Editorial Castalia, 1967).
- 40.
Cervera Vera, Bienes muebles en el Palacio Ducal de Lerma, 22.
- 41.
The servant responsible for cutting the food.
- 42.
A vara corresponds to 0.836 m.
- 43.
General de Palacio, Madrid, Sección Administración General, leg. 903, Tesoro. 1617.
- 44.
Archivo General de Palacio, Madrid, sección Administración General, leg. 902, Inventory of jewelry and objects of Queen Margaret of Austria.
- 45.
Archivo General de Palacio, Madrid, sección Administración General, leg. 904, 1654: “seventeen dozen bowls, blue, white and scarlet, with gilt, totaling one hundred and four porcelain bowls of the type in which His Majesty has his soup.”
- 46.
For the full inventory of King Charles II of Spain, see Gloria Fernández Bayton, Inventario sreales: Testamentaría del Rey Carlos II, 1701–1703, 3 vols. (Madrid: Museo del Prado, 1975, 1981, 1985).
- 47.
Juan González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas más notables, ritos y costumbres, del gran reyno de la China sabidas assi por los libros de los mesmos chinas, como por relacion de religiosos y otras personas que an estado en el dicho reyno ... Con un itinerario del nuevo mundo (Antwerp: Pedro Bellero, 1596), 22.
- 48.
Archivo General de Palacio, Madrid, sección Administración General, leg. 902, Account of the expenses of Hernando de Rojas.
- 49.
Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, box LVII-4-5, fol. 3.
- 50.
Sanchez Cantón, Inventarios Reales, 315.
- 51.
Sanchez Cantón, Inventarios Reales, 315.
- 52.
Sanchez Cantón, Inventarios Reales, 230.
- 53.
Fernandez Bayton, Inventarios reales: Testamentaría del Rey Carlos II, vol. 1, 222; and Archivo General de Palacio, Madrid, Testament of King Charles II of Spain, sig. 240, Guardajoyas y ofiçios de voca.
- 54.
Jan van Campen, “Chinese and Japanese Porcelain in the Interior,” in Chinese and Japanese Porcelain for the Dutch Golden Age, ed. Jan van Campen and Titus Eliëns (Zwolle: Waanders Uitgevers, 2014), 209.
Bibliography
Alfonso Mola, Marina. “La carrera de Indias.” In El Galeón de Manila, exhibition catalogue, edited by Marina Alfonso Mola and Carlos Martínez Shaw, 25–38. Madrid: Ministerio de Educación Cultura y Deporte, 2000.
Canepa, Teresa. Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer: China and Japan and their Trade with Western Europe and the New World 1500–1644. London: Paul Holberton Publishing, 2016.
Cervera Vera, Luis. Bienes muebles en el Palacio Ducal de Lerma. Valencia: Editorial Castalia, 1967.
Covarrubias, Sebastian de. Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española. Madrid: 1611. Accessed July 24, 2017. http//fondonsdigitales.us.es/fondos/libros/765/16/tesoro-de-la-lengua-castellana-o-española/.
Fernández Bayton, Gloria. Inventarios reales: Testamentaría del Rey Carlos II, 1701–1703. 3 vols. Madrid: Museo del Prado, 1975, 1981, 1985.
Gasch-Tomás, José Luis. “Southeast Asia and New Spain in the making of World History. The Manila Galleons and the Circulation of Asian Goods in the Hispanic Empire, c. 1565–1650.” Paper presented at Encounters, Circulations and Conflicts, Fourth European Congress on World and Global History, Paris, September 2014.
González de Mendoza, Juan. Historia de las cosas más notables, ritos y costumbres, del gran reyno de la China sabidas assi por los libros de los mesmos chinas, como por relacion de religiosos y otras personas que an estado en el dicho reyno … Con un itinerario del nuevo mundo. Antwerp: Pedro Bellero, 1596.
Jordan, Annemarie. “The Development of Catherine of Austria’s Collection in the Queen’s Household: Its Character and Cost.” PhD diss., Brown University, 1994.
Jordan, Annemarie. “Verdadero padre y señor: Catherine of Austria, Queen of Portugal.” In Los Inventarios de Carlos V y La Familia Imperial, vol. 3, edited by Fernando Checa Cremades. Madrid: Fernando Villaverde Ediciones, 2010.
Krahe, Cinta. “Chinese Porcelain in Spain during the Habsburg Dynasty.” Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society 77 (2012–2013): 25–37.
Krahe, Cinta. “El coleccionismo de porcelana china: de curiosidad real a mercadería de exportación.” In Orientando la Mirada: Arte Asiático en las colecciones públicas madrileñas, exhibition catalogue, edited by Grupo de Investigación Arte de Asia, 23–43. Madrid: Conde Duque, 2009.
Krahe, Cinta. Chinese Porcelain in Habsburg Spain. Madrid: Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica, 2016.
Kuwayama, George. “Archaeological Excavations of Chinese Ceramics Transported by Manila Galleons.” In Chinese Ceramics in Colonial México, edited by George Kuwayama, 20–2. Los Angeles: Hawaii University Press, 1997.
Le Gobien, Charles, Diego Davin, and Pere d’Dentrecolles. Cartas edificantes y curiosas, escritas de las misiones estrangeras, y de levante por algunos missioneros de la compañía de Jesus traducidas por el padre Diego Davin de la misma Compañía. Madrid: Viuda de Manuel Fernández, 1756. Accessed July 25, 2017. https://archive.org/details/cartasedificant00davgoog.
Pérez de Tudela Gabaldón, Almudena. “La educación artística y la configuración de la imagen del príncipe Felipe.” In La monarquía de Felipe III: La Corte, vol. 3, edited by José Martínez Millán and Maria Antonietta Visceglia, 108–46. Madrid: Fundación Mafre, 2008.
Pérez de Tudela, Almudena. “Making, Collecting, Displaying and Exchanging Objects: An Overview of Archival Sources Relating to the Infanta Isabel’s Personal Possessions (1566–1599).” In Isabella Clara Eugenia: Female Sovereignty at the Courts in Madrid and Brussels, edited by Cordula van Wyhe, 60–87. Madrid: Centro de Estudios de Europa Hispánica, 2011.
Pérez de Tudela, Almudena. “Regalos y retratos: Los años de la infanta Catalina Micaela en la corte de Madrid (1567–1584).” In L’infanta Caterina d’Austria, duchessa di Savoia (1567–1597),edited by Blyte Alice Raviola and Franca Varallo, 97–141. Rome: Carocci, 2013.
Pérez de Tudela, Almudena. “The Third Duke of Alba: Collector and Patron of the Arts.” In Alba, General and Servant to the Crown, edited by M. Ebben, M. Lacy-Bruijn and R. van Hövell tot Westerflier, 169–417. Rotterdam: Karwansaray, 2013.
Pérez Grande, Margarita. Los plateros de Toledo en 1626. Toledo: Instituto Provincial de Investigaciones y Estudios Toledanos, 2002.
Pinheiro da Veiga, Tomé. Fastiginia: Vida cotidiana en la corte de Valladolid. Valladolid: Ámbito ediciones, 1989.
Portús Pérez, Javier. “Que están vertiendo claveles.” Revista Espacio, Tiempo y Forma. Historia del Arte Series VII 6 (1993): 255–74.
Real Academia Española. Diccionario de Autoridades. Madrid: Gredos, 1979.
Rojo Vega, Anastasio. El siglo de Oro: Inventario de una época. Salamanca: Junta de Castilla y León, 1996.
Rosenfeld Pomper, Linda. “New Perspectives on Kinrande.” Arts of Asia 44 (September–October 2014): 73–82.
Sánchez Cantón, Francisco Javier. Inventarios Reales: Bienes Muebles que pertenecieron a Felipe II, vol. 2. Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1956–1959.
Shulsky, Linda R. “Philip II of Spain as Porcelain Collector.” Oriental Art XLIV, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 51–4.
van Campen, Jan. “Chinese and Japanese Porcelain in the Interior.” In Chinese and Japanese Porcelain for the Dutch Golden Age, edited by Jan van Campen and Titus Eliëns, 191–211.Zwolle: Waanders Uitgevers, 2014.
Yuste López, Carmen. El comercio de la Nueva España con Filipinas, 1590–1785. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1984.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Krahe, C. (2018). The Reception and Value of Chinese Porcelain in Habsburg Spain. In: Grasskamp, A., Juneja, M. (eds) EurAsian Matters. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75641-7_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75641-7_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-75640-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-75641-7
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)