Distinctions in design transfer
Material Encounters of the East India Companies 1600 – 1850
Session 2: The East – West Dialogue: Shaping Manufacture
Workshop, 1 & 2 July 2011 at the Ashmolean Museum
Jessica Harrison-Hall, British Museum
1. Designs for identifiable individual customers
Armorial or other
devices, official logos
or names
Individuals with coats
of arms
Clergy/
Govt/ EIC officials
Gentry
Individuals without
coats of arms
Groups with emblems
Societies
Traders/
Masons
Sailors
Military Regiments
City Companies
1985,1119.38
Hatcher shipwreck 1643 Cargo of 23,000 underglaze-blue
decorated pieces recovered from an unidentified Asian
ship wreckedin the South China Sea (Sheaf and Kilburn,
1988, pp. 12 - 80). The discovery of two covers for
oviform jars inscribed with a cyclical date corresponding to
1643 make a fairly precise dating of the wreck possible.
This ship may have been on its way to Indonesia, carrying
besides porcelain, spices, silk and other commodities for
sale to the Dutch, whose East India Company had offices
in Batavia, modern Jakarta, Indonesia.
1986,0729.1
The wreck of the Ving Tau ship, a
Chinese ship carrying porcelain, which
went down off the Con Dao island
Vietnam c. 1690.
Mustard pots from the Vung Tau cargo
1992,0606.1-3
Figure of Guanyin 1992,0701.1 and
teapot 1992,0608.1 .
The wreck of the Geldermalsen, a Dutch East
Indiaman carrying tea, porcelain and gold
bound for Batavia, went down on the
Admiral Stellingwerf reef, off Bintan Island,
near Indonesia, in January 1752. Teapot
1986,0701.14, butter dish 1986,0701.18 and
chamber pot 1986,0701.25
Diana Cargo 1816 1995,0508.1.a-b and Tek Sing a
Chinese Junk carrying porcelain bound for Java,
went down off the Belvedere Reef, Gaspar Straits
(Indonesia) on February 6, 1822. It had a crew of
200, 1600 passengers (immigrants) and a large
porcelain cargo on board. The salvaged cargo
included 350,000 pieces of Chinese porcelain.
The auction of the Tek Sing cargo was held in
Stuttgart, Germany in November 2000.
Punchbowl painted with a grimacing
Scotsman back and front (Franks 744+)
‘Sawney in the Bog House' attributed to
James Gillray, published 1779.
(1868.0808.4951)
Individuals with coats
of arms: clergy
Blue-and-white serving
platter with Talbot coat
of arms
Qing dynasty, 1690–
1710
Diameter: 48.5 cm
British Museum (Franks
734+)
Individuals
with coats
of arms:
government
official
Serving dish with a Scottish coat of arms British Museum (1887,1218.32
Add ID. Franks 772+)
Portrait of Lord Archibald Hamilton (1673–1754) painted by Sir Godfrey
Kneller about1700. Height 127 cm x width 102 cm (Photograph courtesy
of Scotland, East Lothian, Haddington, Lennoxlove House)
Sir William Hamilton by David Allan (1744–1796). Oil on canvas, 1775.
89 in. x 71 in. (2260 mm x 1803 mm) Transferred from British Museum,
1879. National Portrait Gallery Primary Collection NPG 589. Sir William
Hamilton is shown in his home in Naples where this service was used.
Individuals with coats of arms: gentry
Coffee pot and cover with the Clifford of Chudleigh
arms 1730-1750 (1887,1218.1 or Franks 816+)
English silver coffee pot with a wooden handle,
engraved with a decorative cipher, London made
1705 or 1706 by Isaac Dighton is in the V&A
Museum M.165-1919 this image is the same
shape but earlier 1670-1671 M.399-1921
Ugbrooke in Devon - ancestral home to the Lords
Clifford of Chudleigh
Portraits of Hugh, 3rd Baron (1700–1732) and of
Hugh, 4th Baron Clifford of Chudleigh (1726– 83).
(Photographs courtesy of the present Lord Clifford)
Individuals with coats of arms: gentry
Serving dish with a design of the ‘Immersion of Achilles’
British Museum (Franks 892+)
Print made by Edmé Jeaurat published in Paris in 1719.
British Museum (X,6.47)
Detail of the reverse of the dish showing the coat of arms of
the French family of Thornidykes and Frenchlands of
Berwickshire. British Museum Franks 892
Serving dish with a design of the Triumph of Mordecai’
British Museum Franks 893+
Triumph of Mordecai, Print made by Edmé Jeaurat1737 British
Museum 1952.0405.121
Detail of the reverse of the dish showing the coat of arms of
the French family of Thornidykes and Frenchlands of
Berwickshire British Museum Franks 892
Individuals with coats of arms: quality control mottos
The service to which this cream jug (Franks.780.+) belonged was probably ordered by Michael
Barnwell, an employee of the English East India Company who died in 1792 (Howard, 1974, p.
416). The design was copied from a bookplate such as this, also in the British Museum (BM
Franks 1580). Did it matter the motto was incorrectly painted? David Howard looked at the BM’s
40,000 bookplates and concluded one in eight Chinese porcelain services had a bookplate
original surviving.
Individuals without coats of
arms: traders
Tankard made for an English
leather worker. Jingdezhen
1760-1780. British Museum
Franks 779+
Trade-card for John Rigg, cupper
and owner of the Hummums bath
house in the Little Piazza, Covent
Garden, 1739-63 British Museum
Heal,9.3
Individuals without coats of arms: traders
Masonic teapot with royal coat of arms of England
1887,1218.13 Add ID Franks 806+)
Trade card for Showell the ship-makers printed by William
Sharp 1764-1824 British Museum 1841,0313.12
Individuals without coats of arms: sailors
Dish commissioned for a crew member of a Dutch trading ship British
Museum Franks 598
Dish commissioned for the Captain of a Dutch trading ship. V&A
Museum C.376-1926
Page from a diary written by Edward Barlow ‘The Maner of a holanes
Shipp called the Burff van Lidan that was in the yeare 1674’. National
Maritime Museum.
Groups with emblems: societies
This pseudo-armorial design belongs to the Anti-Gallican Society, a masonic- style patriotic
organization founded in London in 1745, with headquarters at Lebeck's Head, The Strand,
London, and branches in the country. Franks.1415
Groups with emblems:
masons
Dated 1755. This is the
earliest dated Masonic
porcelain bowl and
tankard. (Franks.741+a
and 741+).
Print by James Gillray
‘Anecdote Maçonnique. A
Masonic Anecdote.’
punch being drunk and
Masonic emblems.
Published London 1786.
British Museum
(1868,0808.5578)
1. Designs for identifiable regional markets
Ceramics with no
arms blue and
white, white,
enamelled etc
Archaeological
shipwrecks
finds eg. Museum
of London rubbish
and pub sites
Country House
collections
Inventories and
surviving pots
Shipping and other
written/ painted
records
Heirloom pots with
prints or other
designs which are
region specific
Museum
collections, private
collections
2. Designs, produced for one customer or
market and considered attractive/exotic and
consumed by another market
-either stimulating the rapid production of
local copies or
- adapting the original for a different
function or
- using/displaying as is
Kraak bowl with armorial designs and
inscriptions. British Museum (1957,1216.19)
Willem Claesz Heda (1594 - 1680/82),
Prunkstillleben, 1638 in the HamburgerKunsthalle Museum, Germany
Fritware bowl, Iranian, seventeenth century.
Height: 19.5 cm; diameter: 32.5 cm V&A
Museum (2904-1876)
PDF 695 The ‘Lennard Cup’
This bowl, mounted in silver-gilt as
a cup, belonged to an
Englishman, Samuel Lennard (AD
1553-1618). The cover and foot
carry the monogram FR, the mark
of a goldsmith who also made
church plate. The crowned
leopard's head shows it was made
in London and the lion passant is
the standard mark for sterling
silver (92.5% fine); and the letter
'm' in a shield is the wardens’
mark, denoting the year AD 156970, and allocating the
responsibility for the purity of the
silver to the assay master for that
year.
About 1522–66, mounts dated AD
1569–70
Ovoid jar and cover with Persian
figures 1620–1644 Height: 48 cm
British Museum, (1965,0726.1)
Tile showing an archer Safavid
dynasty about 1600-1650. British
Museum, given by Mrs Essie Winifred
Newberry (1949,1115.8)
Mezzotint of Queen Mary II published
by Nicolaes Visscher II. British
Museum, bequeathed by William
Meriton Eaton, 2nd Baron
Cheylesmore (1902,1011.8377)
Hampton Court Palace
3
• Should we call transfers of design which occur
with a long time lag, sometimes of more than
one hundred years and no intermediary –
copies rather than design transfers?
Porcelain dish painted with a phoenix and qilin. Jingdezhen
1662-1700 British Museum (Franks 513+)
Dish of this pattern dated about 1705 to1720 is attributed to
the De Roos factory in the Netherlands.
Soft-paste steatitic porcelain Dish made at Worcester,
England about 1770. British Museum given by Mr and Mrs
Frank Lloyd (1921.12-15.64. )
Kangxi dish made about 1700-1720 with underglaze blue dragons, phoenix and flowers
and overglaze famille verte enamels (left) and bone china dish printed and painted
decoration pattern 2638. Spode, Stoke-on-Trent, 1800-1830 Gift of Reginald and
Dorothy Haggar 1990P288 (right) on display at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery,
Stoke.
Jug with the Arms of the Duke of Norfolk
Porcelain with overglaze enamels made Samson of Paris (Samson, Edmé et Cie) 1850-1920
Bequeathed by Miss Woodward 1981,0604.8
Bowl made
Samson of
Paris 18501920
1925,1124.1
Samson
Ceramic Masterpieces
The British Museum, V&A Museum and
National Museum of China are
collaborating to produce an exhibition for
summer of 2012 in Beijing. This show will
present ceramics produced for the elite of
geographically diverse markets for a
general audience that rarely has an
opportunity to see such material in China.