Blue and White Chinese porcelain with datable 16th-century mounts

Summary

Besides learning from sherds that have been turned up by terrestrial and underwater archaologists, we can learn more about dating Chinese porcelain from pieces found with datable mounts in European collections.  Five pieces of blue and white porcelain now in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York were originally in Burghley House, Stamford, Lincolnshire, where they may have come via trade with Turkey.  They are significant because there were very few pieces of Chinese porcelain in England at that time.  Before coming to New York, they were in the collection of J.P. Morgan.  The mounts have been dated to 1575-85, and the pieces compare closely to sherds found at Drake's Bay, to sherds found at  Baja California that may be from the wreck of a Manila Galleon of 1576, and also those found at Panama Vieja. 

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• It’s All in the Details: Examples of How Focused Study Can Help Tell a Story   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 22