D2524. Pair of Ovoid Blue and White Jars

Delft, circa 1695

Each marked AK in blue for Adrianus Kocx, owner of De Grieksche A (The Greek A) from 1686 to 1701

Each with a blue ‘cracked-ice’ ground reserved on the front and reverse with an irregularly shaped panel depicting either an elderly Chinese man clasping a walking stick and bending to read an open book placed on a three-legged structure near rocks and a pine tree beneath the moon, or a Chinese figure standing with outstretched arms before an acacia tree beneath the moon and looking toward a fleeing stag amidst rocks and stylized shrubbery, the sides reserved with four lotus blossoms and foliate scrolls, and the shoulder encircled below the waisted neck with a border of elongated triangles alternately terminating in dots.

DIMENSIONS
Heights: 29 and 29.8 cm. (11.4 and 11.7 in.)

PROVENANCE
The Kitty Valkier-Schreurs Collection, Belgium;
Aronson Antiquairs, Amsterdam

LITERATURE
Described and illustrated in Aronson 2014, pp. 18-19, no. 7.

NOTE
When making this pair of jars, the potter likely used a Japanese imitation of Chinese porcelain as a reference. Although lidded jars of this style exist in Chinese porcelain, a civil war in China during the transitional period between the Ming and Qing dynasties disrupted porcelain exports. As a result, Dutch merchants looked for alternatives for the profitable porcelain trade and tried to develop a porcelain industry in Japan, providing potters with Dutch and Chinese examples to imitate. While this effort proved too expensive, a considerable amount of Japanese export porcelain made its way into the Dutch market starting in 1653. However, it never achieved the same success as Chinese porcelain, as the quality was lower and production costs were higher.

The vine-pattern decoration on the side of this pot is known as “Karakusa” in Japan. The word “kara” means China, and “kusa” means plant, referring to the Chinese origin of these vines and leaves.

SIMILAR EXAMPLES
An AK-marked jar, virtually identical to the present jar featuring an elderly Chinese man but with a flat circular cover, is part of the Evenepoel Collection (no. 633 A-B) at the Musées d’Art et d’Histoire in Brussels. It is illustrated in Helbig I, p. 108, fig. 74, with the note that the decoration shows evidence of “trekking” (thin outlines of a pattern drawn with a very fine brush) in black. Another jar from this series, identically marked and painted with a flautist riding a water buffalo, is in the Willet-Holthuysen Museum, Amsterdam, illustrated in Lunsingh Scheurleer 1984, p. 248, no. 182. A jar of this Chinese-inspired model, with a flat, cylindrical cover and marked “AK n 6,” is illustrated in Van Aken-Fehmers 1999, p. 100, no. 10. A jar, marked AK, of similar size and composition, but with a different scene, is in the collection of Het Prinsenhof in Delft (inv. no. B 17-62).