91 Kakiemon porcelain appears to have been shipped to Europe by private traders, whose dealings are naturally not registered in the official documents of the East India Companies. As a result, there is no record of the European ports at which the porcelain arrived. In this period, only Dutch and Chinese merchants were allowed to trade with the Japanese, but it has been suggested that Kakiemon was mostly shipped by the latter, since the decoration was more to the taste of the Chinese, who however resold part of their stock to English merchants, which makes London a good candidate for Kakiemon porcelain’s port of arrival in Europe. And indeed, there are still many Kakiemon pieces in British historical collections, while there are almost none in the Dutch.4 As an additional factor, however, it must be noted that during the early eighteenth century quite a quantity of porcelain was sold from Dutch collections to European buyers, principally in France and England, which could also explain the lack of Kakiemon in the Netherlands. During this period, the Dutch economy had hit a slump, possibly causing families to sell pieces from their collections, which will of course have been eagerly snapped up by foreign buyers.5 To return to the jars, which are decorated on the body with rectangular panels divided by a floral ornament, the reserves show two East Asian-looking figures, one holding a fan and the other a parasol, in a landscape of rocks, plants and birds. The symmetry of the two figures standing on either side of the rock, the central placement of the bird and the depiction of the parasol are atypical of Japanese art, and the decoration was possibly inspired by a European example, such as Delftware or a drawing.6 While the Liechtenstein collection boasts many such interesting examples of Japanese porcelain, we will first look at some of its earlier, and thus Chinese, pieces of Asian porcelain. EARLY ASIAN PORCELAIN The Liechtenstein collection of Asian porcelain was very likely initiated well before the late seventeenth century, as suggested by the presence of several Chinese pieces from the late sixteenth to early seventeenth century. One noteworthy item is a large sixteenth-century celadon vase with a central decoration of lotus scrolls (fig. 3). Vases of this type were made in China from the fourteenth century onwards and were placed in temples. While celadon is rare in European historical collections, many examples are preserved at the Topkapı Palace Museum in Istanbul, which holds the former collections of the Ottoman sultans. Pieces such as this one presumably also arrived in Europe via the Middle East, where Chinese celadon was very much in demand. In the late eighteenth century, a mount was added to the vase, which entailed cutting off the flared mouth so that the cover could be fitted on (unless the mouth had perhaps been damaged or had broken off earlier). Another early Chinese piece in the Liechtenstein porcelain collection is a cachepot dating to the Wanli period (1573–1620) with an ormolu (gilded bronze) mount (fig. 4). Originally this was a garden seat (zuodun) of the kind used in Chinese gardens and interiors. In Europe the original function would not have been known, which is perhaps why the object was cut in half and made into a cachepot (or perhaps two cachepots) fitted with an ormolu mount. It is not known how and when the vase and the cachepot arrived in the collection, but there is a possibility that they were acquired by or gifted to Prince Karl I von Liechtenstein (1569–1627), who was Obersthofmeister (head of the court household) to Emperor Rudolf II (1552–1612) in Prague. The emperor was a passionate collector of Asian objects, as we know from an inventory of his Kunstkammer drawn up in 1607/1611 that is preserved in the Liechtenstein archives.7 It contains numerous references to porcelain mounted with gold and silver, which will very likely have been similar to pieces such as the ewer with a silver mount (inv. PO 2531) in the Liechtenstein collection. The inventory also makes reference to the translucency of the porcelain, which was indeed exactly what the material was admired for, in addition to its whiteness 4 The exception is Twickel Castle in the province of Overijssel. 5 Fitski 2011, 44, 46. 6 Fitski 2011, 22, 33. 7 Von anno 1607. Verzaichnus, was in der Röm. Kay. May. Kunstcammer gefunden worden, etc., drawn up in 1607 by Daniel Fröschl (1563–1613), with addenda up to 1611, LIECHTENSTEIN. The Princely Collections, Vaduz–Vienna, inv. HS 130. Fig. 3 Large vase with lotus scrolls China, Longquan (porcelain) / Ignaz Joseph Würth, Vienna (mount) Ming dynasty, sixteenth century/ c. 1775/85 Porcelaneous stoneware, celadon, gilded bronze LIECHTENSTEIN. The Princely Collections, Vaduz–Vienna Inv. PO 1848
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