Dish
Category
Ceramics
Date
1670
Materials
Porcelain, cobalt.
Measurements
22 cm (Diameter)
Place of origin
Arita
Order this imageCollection
Saltram, Devon
NT 871010.2
Summary
One of a pair of dishes, porcelain, round, curved with a gently flattening rim, made in Arita, Hizen Province, Japan, c. 1670, decorated in underglaze blue in the kraak style with in the centre a landscape with a cricket perched on a rock, surrounded by panels with stylised flowers and auspicious objects separated by pendants
Full description
The word kraak appears to have been a garbled Dutch version of the Portuguese caracca, the term for a type of ship used in the trade with East Asia (Kerr and Mengoni 2011). It was the Portuguese who first brought the type of Chinese export porcelain that came to be known as kraak to Europe in the 16th century. As the export of porcelain from China dwindled following the invasion by the Manchus in 1644, Dutch merchants turned to Japanese suppliers at Arita. One of the types of Japanese porcelain that began to be exported to Europe during the second half of the 17th century was an imitation of Chinese kraak ware. A similarly decorated Japanese kraak-style dish is in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, inv. no. 1995.268.2.
Provenance
Given to the National Trust by Montagu Brownlow Parker, 5th Earl of Morley (1878-1962), 1957.
References
Kerr and Mengoni 2011: Rose Kerr and Luisa E. Mengoni, Chinese Export Ceramics, London, 2011, p.22.