Bottle, painted in underglaze blue, China, Jingdezhen, Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), 1552.

Bottle of porcelain, pear-shaped body, painted in blue on a white ground with ducks amidst lotus plants. Round the top of the body are two rings of Portuguese words, written upside down and with several errors, ISTO MANDOU FAZER JORGE ALVARES NA ERA DE 1552, which translates as 'Jorge Alvares had this made in the year 1552'. The neck has been cut down and mounted with metal top and stopper.

Purchased from a source not recorded in the Asia Department registers, accessioned in 1892. This acquisition information reflects that found in the Asia Department registers, as part of a 2022 provenance research project.
TURKEY, ISTANBUL

The shape and decoration of this bottle is fairly typical of a mid-16th century Chinese porcelain. What makes this piece special is the Portuguese inscription around the shoulder, which reads: 'Jorge Alvares had this made in the year 1552'. Even more fortunate is that the identity of this Jorge Alvares is known. He was a naval captain, merchant and friend of the Catholic missionary Francis Xavier (1506-1562). He was on the first Portuguese voyage to China in 1513, subsequently acted as factor at the entrepot in Malacca, revisited China in 1518 and died there in 1552. Thus this bottle was commissioned by him shortly before his death.
Five other similar bottles are presently known to have survived, all bearing an inscription referring to Jorge Alvares. The Chinese potter who copied the inscription, however, made errors in a variety of ways, and it has taken scholars some time to decipher the Portuguese words. It was a fairly common practice for a Chinese client to demand that his name be inscribed on the porcelains he ordered, but Alvares must have been among the first few foreigners who took advantage of that system. Needless to say the foreign language meant nothing to the potter, who copied the inscription upside down. Even more interesting is that he added a Chinese inscription 'Da Ming nian zao' (made in the Great Ming dynasty) on the base of the bottle, at his own initiative, as if he wanted his foreign customer to remember that the piece came from the Celestial Empire.
The early record in the V&A describes the bottle as 'neck broken'. But another bottle with a similar inscription, in the Caramulo Museum of Art in Portugal, is also cut down at the neck and mounted with an Islamic metal top. If it seems too much of a coincidence that two similar bottles were broken at exactly the same place, the logical conclusion must be that the two bottles were deliberately cut down and fitted with Islamic mounts when they turned up in the Middle East. The V&A bottle was bought in Istanbul in 1892.

This bottle has had its neck cut down and a metal stopper added. Around the shoulder it bears a confused European inscription for a Portuguese client: 'O MANOOU FACER JORGE ALVRZ 1552'. Inscribed on the base is the mark 'da Ming nian zao' (made in the great Ming dynasty). It is decorated with ducks and waterweeds.

237-1892