M. de Laborde, in his glossary, quotes from the inventory of the goods of Margaret of Austria, the Regent of the Low Countries during the minority of her nephew, the future Emperor Charles v., the following items among others: Un beau grand pot de pourcelaine bleue à deux agneaux d’argent. Deux autres esguières d’une sorte de porcelayne bleue. Ung beau gobelet de porcelayne blanche, à couvercle, painct à l’entour de personnaiges d’hommes et femmes.’
An additional interest is given to this inventory of the possessions of the Regent Margaret when we remember that it was of her brother that the following story is told:—In the spring of 1506 Philip started from the Netherlands for Spain, along with his wife Joanna, to claim for the latter the crown of Castile, vacant by the death of the great Queen Isabella. Driven by a storm into Weymouth Harbour, the pair were entertained by Sir Thomas Trenchard, the High Sheriff of the county, at his house not far from Dorchester. On leaving, Philip gave to his host some bowls of Oriental porcelain. Two of these bowls of blue and white ware remain in the possession of the representatives of the Trenchard family. One of them is set in a silver gilt mounting of about 1550, with a London hall-mark on the inside. On the outside of the bowl is a bold floral decoration, and inside some quaint archaic fish, similar to those on the Cheng-te bowl in the Salting collection. They have been lately described by Mr. Winthrop in Gulland’s Oriental China, vol. ii.
We have now come to a time when a new channel was opened by which the porcelain and other produce of the Far East could reach Europe. In the year 1517 Fernando Perez D’Andrada sailed from Malacca to the roads of Canton, and the Portuguese not long after established some kind of understanding with the Chinese, which permitted them to trade at that port and at Ningpo. This arrangement, however, lasted but for a short time. Some aggressive proceedings on the part of a new admiral sent out from Portugal aroused the latent hostility of the Ming Government, and the newcomers were before long confined to that ambiguous position at Macao that they occupy to the present day. There does not seem to be any direct evidence that porcelain formed part of the merchandise that they at that time—I mean during the sixteenth century—sent back to Europe; but after the end of the century, when Portugal and her colonies were for a time absorbed in the vast empire ruled by Philip ii. of Spain, a considerable amount of the Oriental ware reached the Peninsula by way of ‘the Indies.’ Specimens of this old porcelain, chiefly of the plain white that the Spanish have always preferred, may still be found, it is said, in some of the royal palaces.
The Portuguese in some measure took the place of the Arabs, whose shipping they had driven out from the Indian seas, and it was now in their ships that the Chinese porcelain was carried to the markets of India and Persia. But by the end of the sixteenth century the Portuguese, now sailing under the Spanish flag, began to feel the rivalry of a new power that was destined before long to monopolise nearly the whole trade of the Far East. In 1604, three ships bearing an ambassador and his suite arrived at Canton. The Chinese were alarmed at the singular aspect of these new people, ‘with blue eyes, red hair, and feet one cubit and two-tenths long.’ The Dutch, however—for such these newcomers were—effected little by this embassy, and it is indeed difficult to understand, when we read of the troubled relations of foreign nations with the fast sinking Ming rulers in those stormy days, in what manner and by what route the porcelain that was now reaching the markets of India, Persia, and somewhat later, of Europe, in such large quantities, found its way out from China. After the establishment of the new Manchu dynasty in 1644, the three southern provinces, including the ports of the Canton river and of the Fukien coast, long remained in the hands of the native Chinese admiral or pirate, so well known to Europeans as Coxinga, and it was not till some years after the accession of Kang-he that the imperial authority was established in these parts, and the trade road re-opened with the newly rebuilt kilns of King-te-chen.[134]
The English at that time had not much direct intercourse with China. What little reached us from that country seems to have been obtained rather by piracy than by trade. In the days of Elizabeth, when a Spanish merchantman or carrack was captured, next to the bullion there was nothing that was more eagerly sought for than porcelain, both that which might form part of the cargo and any pieces in use at the officers’ table. As late as the year 1637, it was through the medium of the Portuguese that the bulk of the English trade with China was carried on. Meantime, however, we had established ourselves in the Persian Gulf, and in the year 1623 we assisted Shah Abbas in driving the Portuguese out of Hormus. We had at that time comparatively close relations with Persia, and there was more than one English adventurer in the service of the great Shah. There is some reason to believe that it was by way of our factories or depôts on the Persian Gulf (especially the new establishment at Gombroon,[135] on the mainland, opposite the island of Hormus or Ormuz), as well as by those on the coast of India, that the porcelain of China and Japan first reached England in any quantity. In these commercial relations we may no doubt find one of the causes of the confusion that so long existed with us between the wares of Persia, India, and China.
But Chinese porcelain, as well as Persian fayence, must have reached England by another route—by way of Venice—and this at a somewhat earlier date. To this connection of ‘china-ware’ with Venice there is frequent reference in our Elizabethan literature. Florio in his Italian Dictionary (1598) interprets the word ‘china’ as ‘a Venus basin,’ and ‘china metal’ is explained by Minsheu in his Spanish Dialogues (1599) as ‘the fine dishes of earth painted such as are brought from Venice.’ Here the reference probably is to Italian or Persian fayence—in fact the tendency seems rather to have been to use the word ‘china’ for these latter wares and to reserve the term ‘purslane’ or ‘porcelaine’ for the true porcelain of the Far East.
Indeed there is every likelihood that we may find the origin of our term ‘china,’ used vaguely for the better kinds of glazed ceramic wares,[136] in the Persian word chini, which has long been employed for Chinese porcelain and for the finer kinds of fayence, both in Persia and in India. The point to bear in mind is that with our ancestors this word had no direct connection with the Chinese empire, but rather with Venice and with Persia. On the other hand, the special ware known as ‘purslane,’ as we have said, was by them connected especially with that vague country known as ‘the East Indies.’
At the New Year, 1587-88, Elizabeth received from Burleigh a porringer ‘of white porselyn’ garnished with gold, and from Mr. Robert Cecil ‘a cup of grene pursselyne.’ It was not until the beginning of the next century, apparently, that porcelain, decorated with blue under the glaze, was imported in any quantity. To this time we must assign the four pieces of this ‘blue and white’ ware (one bearing the mark of Wan-li) ([Pl. xxviii].) long preserved at Burleigh House, the old home of the senior branch of the Cecil family ([see page 85]).
By the middle of the seventeenth century Oriental porcelain had already become an important article of commerce. At that time by far the larger quantity was imported by the Dutch, and was distributed by them over France and Germany. There is, however, some reason to believe that the Portuguese continued to import certain classes of ware, but it is difficult to