Kendi
Category
Ceramics
Date
c. 1600
Materials
Porcelain, cobalt
Measurements
185 mm (Height)
Place of origin
Jingdezhen
Order this imageCollection
Belton House, Lincolnshire
NT 433376
Summary
Kendi (communal drinking vessel), porcelain, with a globular body, a domed spout and a trumpet-shaped neck, made in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, China, Wanli period (1573–1620), c. 1600, decorated in underglaze blue in the kraak style with panels with flowering plants and auspicious objects on the body, with panels with stylised leaves reserved against a blue ground on the spout, and stylised upright leaves on the neck.
Full description
Kendi is a Malay term, derived from the Sanskrit kuṇḍikā, ‘water pot’. These vessels were intended for communal drinking, as the liquid could be poured into the mouth without the lips having to touch the spout. The term kraak refers to the decoration of porcelain object soriginally produced in China for the Portuguese. It is probably a Dutch phonetic version of the Portuguese word caracca, referring to the type of ship used for trade with East Asia (Kerr and Mengoni 2011).
Provenance
Purchased by the National Trust with support from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, 1984.
References
Kerr and Mengoni 2011: Rose Kerr and Luisa E. Mengoni, Chinese Export Ceramics, London, 2011, p. 22