RKD STUDIES

John van Collema’s bills not only show the range of goods he stocked; they also give an insight into shopping patterns of his customers, and thus the interplay between supply and demand in the process of collecting and display. He kept a running account for the Duchess of Somerset, adding new purchases to the bill each time she visited his shop, and presenting the total for payment after several months [15]. This enables us to see how she built up her porcelain collection through frequent visits, sometimes even daily during the London season. There was a particularly dense cluster of visits in the winter and spring of 1701, when she visited on 12 separate occasions: 21, 28, 29 and 31 January, 1 and 8 February, 1, 8, 10, 11 and 26 March and 2 April.¹ She purchased a wide range of goods, including decorative porcelain and teaware, tea leaves, fans, and glass bottles. On some visits, she acquired just a few items, such as the ‘paire of purple saucers’ bought on 13 January 1693, or a set of six teacups and saucers on 21 January 1701.² On other occasions she purchased a large quantity of mixed porcelain: 34 items on 15 December 1692 and 53 on 24 October 1701.³ Queen Mary was also a regular customer, purchasing goods on six separate occasions over a period of six months. Her purchases included fans, porcelain ink pots and jugs, and ‘a brown China duble bottle Guilt with water gold [with] a garnish of silver’.⁴

On stepping into Van Collema’s shop, customers would have been presented with a tempting array of goods. Although there is no known picture or description of the interior of Van Collema’s own premises, a contemporary painted fan-leaf showing the imaginary interior of an India merchant’s shop gives an indication of how it may have looked [16]. It shows a jumbled profusion of red and black lacquer cabinets, chests, screens and tables. Blue and white and polychrome porcelain and red earthenware is stacked on every available surface and all over the floor, while Indian, Chinese and Japanese pictures hang on the walls. Groups of shoppers inspect the goods, and three ladies are seated beside a pile of fans. The scene is loosely set in India, with the figures wearing Mughal court dress, but the painting is Dutch, drawing on the artist’s own experience of merchants’ shops. The goods in the painting are typical of those that Van Collema stocked, and it is likely that his customers had a similar retail experience, browsing among a wide range of goods, and choosing those that took their fancy. As Patricia Ferguson has observed, retailers encouraged purchases by presenting their premises as elite interiors, and showcasing new methods of display.⁵

The shopping patterns of the Duchess of Somerset and Mary II support this, indicating that their collecting was impulse-led, prompted by what was on display. They visited frequently, and bought multiple examples of the same type of item, suggesting that they were buying porcelain for decorative rather than practical purposes. The Duchess of Somerset owned many different sets of teaware, and the Queen already possessed a very large collection of porcelain which she had brought to England from the Dutch Republic. They did not need more porcelain, or other India goods: their new acquisitions were principally intended for abundant display. The pattern of their visits also suggests that the retail experience itself – browsing and selecting – was an important aspect of the collecting process. The India merchant’s shop was the location at which supply (merchant) and demand (customer) met, each responding to the other, the mid-point in the oscillation between the court and the marketplace.⁶

15
Bill from John van Collema to Elizabeth Seymour, Duchess of Somerset, 22 May 1700 (PHA 274/28)
Petworth House Archives (Reproduced by kind permission of Lord Egremont)

16
Dutch School
Interior of a Chinese shop, fan leaf, c. 1690-1700
Gouache on paper, 263 x 436 mm
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

The geographic location of Van Collema’s premises was crucial to his success. The West End was a fast-growing, fashionable residential area, close to the court; many members of the nobility and wealthy gentry lived there during the London season. Nearby St Martin’s Lane was a hub for furniture-making and design, where artists and craftsmen rubbed shoulders with their well-heeled clientele.⁷ The concentration of manufacturers, retailers and customers fostered technical and stylistic innovations, which found ready buyers in a ‘market-oriented approach to culture’.⁸ Green Street was just off Leicester Fields, subsequently redeveloped as Leicester Square, which was described in 1720 as ‘a very handsome square, railed about and gravelled within. The buildings are very good and well inhabited, and frequented by the gentry.’⁹ In 1684 (the first year that Van Collema is recorded in Green Street), the residents of Leicester Fields included the diplomat Sir Gabriel Silvius (fl. 1665-1689); Sir Nicholas Crispe, 2nd baronet (1643-1698); Lord North, 5th baron (c. 1636-1691); the dowager Lady Howard (1643/4-1693); Lady Herbert (possibly Henrietta, 1643-1728); and Sir John Sharoon (dates unknown).¹⁰ The great aristocratic townhouses of the Strand and Piccadilly were a short walk away, as was St James’ Square, another popular location for aristocratic residences. Northumberland House, the Duchess of Somerset’s London mansion, was a four-minute walk from Green Street. It is almost certain that the duchess visited Van Collema’s shop in person, as although purchases of tea are frequently annotated with the name of the household staff member who had visited the shop on her behalf, no such names appear against porcelain or other decorative goods.¹¹ Whitehall Palace, Queen Mary’s principal residence in London, was only a ten-minute walk away [17]. The ease with which his customers could visit his shop encouraged them to visit frequently, contributing to a pattern of collecting and display that was based on quantity, rather than quality.

17
Hendrick Danckerts
Palace of Whitehall from Saint James’s Park, c. 1674-1675
London (England), Government Art Collection, inv./cat.nr. 12211