Philobiblon

That particular beast, of which I’d previously been unaware, was, I learnt this afternoon, one of the highlights of the cabinet of curiosities of Sir Walter Cope, an associate of William Cecil, who built Cope Castle, later Holland House Kensington. (Some taxidermist must really have been taxed to construct that one.)

He also boasted some fine porcelain, which was the subject of an IHR seminar this afternoon, by Susan Bracken (University of Sussex), “Collecting Chyna in Jacobean London”. She argued that while the traditional view is that interest in porcelain only grew with the spread of “hot liquors”, ie. coffee and chocolate, in fact interest started much earlier.

Indeed in Italy in the 16th-century there were widespread if unsuccessful attempts to imitate the imported Chinese product. The Medicis were the most successful, but the hard paste recipe was not understood in west; many believed you could just dig it up. They had a powerful incentive to try to make it – it was thought that it would break on contact with poison, so its use was particularly suited to court life.

The earliest evidence for its presence in Europe is records from Topkapi palace in 1331. It was traded through India, as well as via the silk route, but Hindus would not use it for eating and drinking. An inventory of Henry VIII’s possession has him in possession of four pieces, three of which had gold fittings around them, reflecting their rarity value.

The word porcelain first appears in English in this context in 1530, and in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure it is referred to without explanation, so must by then have been widely available. There are references in Ben Johnson’s Epicene, or the Silent Woman to “china houses” and a china woman (presumably a seller of such, and there are other reports of women being china merchants – be nice to know more!)