Kraak ware

[1] It was among the first Chinese export wares to arrive in Europe in mass quantities, and was frequently featured in Dutch Golden Age paintings of still life subjects with foreign luxuries.

[8] Kraak ware is almost all painted in the underglaze cobalt blue and white porcelain style that was perfected under the Ming dynasty, although a few examples of dishes over-painted with vitreous enamel glaze have survived.

It is often decorated with variations on the more traditional motifs found on Chinese porcelain, such as stylized flowers (peonies and chrysanthemums) and Buddhist auspicious emblems.

The specialist Maura Rinaldi suggests that the latter type was designed specifically to serve a European clientele, since there do not seem to be many surviving examples elsewhere in the world, even in the spectacular Topkapı Palace collection, which houses the most extensive selection of Kraak ware of all.

[10] Kraak was copied and imitated all over the world, by potters in Arita, Japan and Persia—to which Dutch merchants turned when, after the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644, Chinese originals were no longer available[11]—and ultimately in Delft.

[13] In contrast to the other major European imports of the time (for example textiles or spices), ceramics are able to withstand exposure to water, thus making it the ideal merchandise to serve as ballast cargo in the great ships.