Chinese Blue and White Wares (Pandanan)
Chinese Blue and White Wares (Pandanan)
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Revised_Chinese Blue and Whites Poster 01
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Diver exposing a Chinese blue and white porcelain dish. Photo by G. Fournier
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Diver examining a Chinese blue and white bowl. Photo by G. Fournier
Today’s #MaritimeMonday features the Chinese blue and white porcelain that were found in the Pandanan shipwreck, off the shores of Pandanan Island, southern Palawan. The vessel was accidentally discovered by a pearl farm diver, who was looking for a missing pearl basket and instead found stoneware jars at a depth of more than 40 m below sea surface level.
The trade vessel sunk between the middle to the late 15th CE (Common Era) and yielded more than 4,700 objects with a dominant ceramic cargo along with iron, glass, wood, stone, and organic remains. More than 70% of the ceramic cargo came from the kilns of Northern and Central Vietnam. At least 40 pieces of Chinese blue and white porcelain were recovered, among them were dishes, jarlets, and bowls. The most significant of the blue and white porcelain objects is a big bowl dated to Yuan Dynasty Period (1279–1368 CE). It is more than 100 years older than the rest of the cargo, and designated as a National Cultural Treasure. To learn more about the Pandanan blue and white porcelain bowl, please see: https://tinyurl.com/4dvsdawt.
The rest of the Chinese blue and white porcelain pieces were dated to the so-called Interregnum Period (1436–1464 CE) and produced by the kilns at Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province. This is based on the similarity of the artistic styles of artefacts found in dated Chinese tombs, as well as fragments from the kilns sites at Jingdezhen and excavated pieces from an area near the Ming imperial palace in Nanjing. These wares include dishes with mythical animal themes (unicorns, phoenix, and qilin) and floral designs. The limited quantity of the Chinese ceramics with less than 4% of the ceramic cargo, reflects the scarcity of Chinese ceramics during this period due to the prohibition of maritime trade in China. The substantial presence of ceramics from Vietnam, Thailand, and Myanmar also indicate that these countries filled this Chinese ceramic export vacuum.
The #NationalMuseumPH is now open to the public with limited capacity. You may book your appointment through this website. Monitor our social media pages such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for further announcements. In the meantime, you may watch the virtual tour of the upgraded ‘300 Years of Maritime Trade in the Philippines’ exhibition here: https://tinyurl.com/300YearsOfMaritimeTradePH.
#ChineseBlueAndWhitePorcelain
Poster and text by the Maritime and Underwater Cultural Heritage Division
© National Museum of the Philippines (2021)
Over the centuries, Sta. Ana church has suffered the inclemency of tropical weather and has survived major earthquakes. Fortunately, it was saved from World War II, while the rest of Manila burned down, the town and the church stood unscathed. In 1977, major restoration was undertaken by the National Artist Juan F. Nakpil with the assistance of Engineer Arturo Mañalac to bring out the church’s original appearance for the town of Sta. Ana’s 400th anniversary.
The Sta. Ana Church is also notable for its extensive use of capis in its windows and fenestrations. These extant capis are found throughout the church, but are most prevalent in the convent courtyard; featuring a gallery corridor measuring approximately four (4) meters in width, with the exception of the Western corridor which is attached to the church proper and measuring six (6) meters in width. This gallery corridor wraps around the entirety of the convent courtyard, overlooking the central patio, and is comprised entirely of sliding windows that feature capis shells, with panes of the shell in first and second grade, ranging in size from a 5 to 7 centimeter square.
Each wall of the square inner structure facing out unto the patio includes four (4) unit sets of windows, with each unit comprising of eight (8) panels: this totals to thirty-two (32) panels per wall, and one hundred and twenty-eight (128) sliding panels in the convent. Each individual sliding window panel contains approximately (100) individual capis panes, distributed into two sections of the panel, considering the aforementioned total of one hundred and twenty-eight (128) panels in the convent this totals to approximately twelve-thousand and eight hundred (12,800) capis panes within the sliding windows of the convent alone.
Currently, the Sta. Ana Church is amongst Manila’s built heritage structures featured at the National Museum of Philippines’ interdisciplinary exhibition, “Placuna placenta: Capis Shells and Windows to Indigenous Artistry” waiting for visitor’s appreciation, a panel of the capis windows from the church convent is also currently loaned from the parish to the exhibit. The Sta. Ana Church is representative of the country’s religious history, and its significance is manifested clearly in its preservation and long-enduring place in the community it represents.
You can appreciate this architectural marvel at the Gallery 20, third level of the National Museum of Fine Arts or see the virtual exhibition thru this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTpyLDCaero
