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Ideoscopic / Chinese Porcelain in Dutch Still Lifes

This material

321 works · 8,691 passages

This material holds scholarship on the porcelain itself: Canepa (2015), Jarman on Heda (2016), the Cultural Reflections essay (2014) and Domesticating Goods (2016). It also holds a 2004 thesis on porcelain in still lifes of 1600–1720, the Witte Leeuw wreck pieces and klapmuts bowls in the Rijksmuseum, and still lifes from the Met, the Rijksmuseum, Cleveland and Chicago. It is strong on kraak types and trade. It is thinner on painters' ownership and on how the 1640s break shows in the pictures.

What is here

1Kraak types and surviving matchesJarman reads Heda's 1638 still life as mass-produced kraak plates, an early European-shaped tankard and a Hydra bowl. She lists surviving Hydra pieces in London, Lisbon, Salem and Arnhem, plus a copy from Iran. Canepa finds that the majority of depicted pieces seem to be kraak.
2Ownership versus painted displayPainted porcelain does not translate directly into ownership, but porcelain was widely owned. Group portraits show kraak cups in use by the late 1627s. One essay says Kalf, an art dealer, possibly also traded porcelain.
3Transitional period and the 1640sThe Transitional period is dated c. 1620–1683, and the dating of its porcelain is still disputed. A Cleveland label says turmoil effectively eliminated imports by the 1640s. The 2004 thesis finds before 1650 mainly Chinese blue-and-white, and afterwards also Japanese wares and Delftware.
4Wrecks and excavated survivorsRijksmuseum holds klapmuts bowls and cups from the Witte Leeuw wreck. Excavated kraak shards turn up in Dutch, Latin American and South African sites.
5The paintings in the four museumsKalf's Wanli-bowl pictures are at the Met, Rijksmuseum and Cleveland. Chicago's records for Claesz (c. 1625) and Snyders (1614) show no porcelain among what a model saw.

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A real session, replayed: a curator asks about the porcelain in Dutch still lifes. 321 works, 8,691 passages, 38 paintings counted.

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Shelf 226 writings · 95 objects · 8,691 passages

Het gezantschap der Neêrlandtsche Oost-Indische Compagnie, aan den grooten Tartarischen Cham, den tegenwoordigen keizer van China : waar in de gedenkwaerdighst Johannes Nieuhof · 1665 Read in full · 2,884
Silk, porcelain and lacquer : China and Japan and their trade with Western Europe and the New World, 1500-1644. A survey of documentary and material evidence María Teresa Llorens Planella · 2015 Read in full · 3,910
Cultural Reflections on Porcelain in the Seventeenth-Century Netherlands Thijs Weststeijn · 2014 Read in full · 398
Heda’s Hydra: on the hydra motif on Chinese blue and white porcelains Lucy Jarman · 2016 Read in full · 22
Still Life with Fruit, Glassware, and a Wanli Bowl Willem Kalf · The Met · 1659 Looked at
Shallow bowl or klapmuts of Chinese porcelain from the wreck of the Dutch East Indiaman Witte Leeuw Rijksmuseum · before 1613 Looked at
The Spanish Trade in Kraak Porcelain to the New World and its Impact on the Local Ceramic Industry Teresa Canepa · 2025 Read in full · 78

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Count it across everything: how many of these texts blame mothers (their ignorance, carelessness or how they fed their babies) for infant deaths…

Printed at the time, 1869–1914 19 of 37

Histories written since 5 of 23

Every passage asked the same question; the texts added up by code

“…in the most unhealthy district, which runs along Bonaventure Street, out of twelve children born six will die of one or other of these diseases before they reach their nineteenth year…”

1 Health Map of Montreal, 1879 · Hovey & Dawson for the Board of Health · open the scan

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A newsroom graphic, a seminar activity, a touchscreen for a gallery, a planet to turn. Ideoscopic builds it from the material, checks every number against its passage, and changes it as you say. These four were made that way, in our own test runs on open material. They are live: open one.

Blue and White on the Table A gallery touchscreen for Dutch still lifes 15 of 38 paintings show Chinese porcelain, with no break after the 1640s

Inside the 645 A newsroom graphic on Phoenix’s heat deaths 457 of 645 died on heat-warning days, in the county’s own table

Who was blamed for the babies? A seminar on Montréal’s infant deaths, 1869–1914 19 of 37 texts of the time blame the mothers; 5 of the 23 histories do

GJ 367 b, as measured A planet to turn, every colour on it measured 15 works name GJ 367 b, against 68 for TRAPPIST-1 b, though its heat was measured all the way round its orbit

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