Swatow ware

The traditional name in the West arose because Swatow, or present-day Shantou, was the South Chinese port in Guangdong province from which the wares were thought to have been shipped.

The many kilns were probably located all over the coastal region,[2] but mostly near Zhangzhou, Pinghe County, Fujian, where several were excavated in the mid-1990s, which has clarified matters considerably.

[7] The pieces are mostly "large open forms such as dishes, painted with sketchy designs over the glaze in red, green, turquoise and black enamels".

[16] This is now interpreted by some, including the Percival David Foundation and Victoria and Albert Museum, as "the path to the islands of the Immortals" of Chinese mythology, leaping above the building,[17] while others retain an open mind.

[19] A division of the blue and white wares into three "families" or broad groups has been proposed by Barbara Harrisson: "conservative", "persistent" and "versatile", in chronological order.

[22] The later groups often use drawing in dark concentrated blue to create the design, which is then overpainted with a lighter wash, in the same style that is often used with black and turquoise in the polychrome enamels.

The outline would have needed to dry before the wash was applied, suggesting that a number of artisans were involved in different stages of production requiring different levels of skill.

[23] The polychrome enamel wares may not have begun until the start of the 17th century, but then increased rapidly, forming about half of the Swatow pieces from the Binh Thuan wreck, which perhaps sank in 1608.

[30] In Japan fragments have been found at prestigious castle and temple sites,[31] and it seems that the rather crude vigour of the decoration appealed to the very sophisticated aesthetic sense of some Japanese tea-masters, leaders of taste at the time.

[32] A wreck off the south coast of Vietnam at Binh Thuan carried a cargo whose surviving elements were Swatow ware and cast iron woks; its excavation was published in 2004.

The Santos Palace in Lisbon has a room decorated between 1664 and 1687 with a spectacular angled ceiling covered with Chinese blue and white porcelain dishes; three of these have been identified as Swatow ware.

[39] These European trades have left fragments of Swatow ware at various land sites and wrecks around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.

[42] The Dutch Princessehof Ceramics Museum has an exceptional collection of some 170 pieces,[43] with "the most representative range of the type",[44] though in terms of shapes it concentrates on the large dishes.