Les porcelaines chinoises du palais de Santos
Authors: Lion-Goldschmidt Daisy 
Published: September 2010

English summary

In Santos palace, the present-day french Embassy in Lisbon, there is a tiny drawing room with a pyramid-shaped ceiling entirely covered by more than 260 chinese porcelain dishes and plates. The majority are Ming blue and white wares of the 16th and early 17th centuries to which are added four overglaze enamelled pièces and a few examples of late 1 7th century ware. The material assembled hère cornes from two sources : the Portuguese royal collection (Santos was a résidence of the kings of Portugal from 1501 to 1578), and acquisitions made by the Lancasters during the same period, with later additions, brought there when the Lancaster family purchased the palace and its contents at the beginning of the 17th century. The Portuguese monopoly of the great maritime expéditions between Europe and the Far-East throughout the 1 6th century explains how this

remarkable group happened to be formed. About 1 680- 1 687, it was set in its still-existing arrangements and thereafter left untouched.

In 1 98 1 , a study of thèse porcelains could at last begin. They were unhooked from their original fastenings, then examined and photographed before being replaced. Examination has revealed an ensemble unique in the West, in quality and consistancy comparable only to ceramics of the same period exported from China to the Near-East, assembled principally in the Topkapu Sarayi Muzesi in Istanbul and in Tehran's Archaeo- logical Muséum which houses the treasure dedicated to the Ardebil shrine by Shah Abbas in 1611.

The présent study is composed of five parts. The fîrst part defines the général context of Chinese export porcelain, its décorative characteristics, and problems of chronology. It includes also références to other collections of the period, a description of the arrangement of wares on the drawing room ceiling and a brief discussion of several vases and bowls still kept in the palace. Next are examined a small group of dishes, of extrême rarity, dating back to the Zhengde reign (1506-1521) and a closely related pièce of slightly later date. The third part is devoted to the numerous types belonging to the long reign of Jiajing ( 1 522-1 566) and the Longqing era ( 1 567-1572). Among objects of remarkable quality and diversity in thèse séries, we fînd a good many examples that are exceptional and even unique. The fourth section concerns production of the Wanli epoch (1573-1619). A few works from the beginning of the reign are rare, in particuliar the only pièce in the collection made to European order (no. 256, fig. 80). Next is discussed the development of the kraak-porselein found hère, a group which spans the period between about 1575 and 1612 or 1613, when the acquisition of Ming pièces came to an end. This latter material and its successive formulas are more familiar than the preceeding types because of the fabulous quanties imported by the Dutch competing with the Portuguese for eastern trade. Among the Lisbon pièces, however, there are several models that are not frequently found. The final part présents examples of production during the early years of Kangxi (1662-1722) before the factories of Jingdezhen reopened officially in 1683.