RKD STUDIES

Amy Lim

Anglo-Dutch cultural exchange travelled through many conduits. When we consider Dutch art in late- 17th century London, we are more likely to think of Willem van de Velde‘s (1611-1693) bristling rigging, or Gerrit Jensen‘s (1634/5-1715) floral marquetry, than the bustling wharves of the City of London. Yet commerce had a role to play as well as creativity, and merchants were significant agents of cultural transfer between the Dutch Republic and England. In particular, they were fundamental in the spread of the 17th and early 18th century fashion for interiors decorated with massed displays of ‘India goods’: porcelain, lacquer and other imports from Asia.¹ From the mid 17th century, this form of display was closely associated with the Dutch Republic, and in particular with the House of Orange-Nassau, and its proliferation in England was stimulated by the accession of William III (1650-1702) and Mary II (1662-1694) to the English, Scottish and Irish thrones in 1689, ushering in new form of Anglo-Dutch monarchy.² Yet this was not solely a court-led fashion, but one that was shaped by the commercial marketplace. Merchants were not merely passive suppliers, but active agents in shaping the style through the goods they made available. Stacey Sloboda has emphasised how commerce was integral to the development of Chinoiserie (a visual language partly informed by Asian imports), describing its development as ‘a complex web of material and symbolic networks that oscillated from the market to the court and back again’.³ The dominance of the Europe-Asia trade by the Dutch East India Company or Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) in the second half of the 17th century meant that the most successful merchants in England were those who benefited from connections in the Dutch Republic, with their field of operations straddling both sides of the Channel. This article demonstrates the contribution of Anglo-Dutch merchants to the development of this characteristically Dutch fashion in English interiors, through a case study of one such merchant, John van Collema (1652-1737).

For centuries, merchants have brought ‘exotic’ goods from afar by land or sea, and collectors have prized them for their rarity, acquiring them as markers of their wealth and status. The collecting and display of porcelain, however, is particularly distinguished by its close association with global commerce and commodities. Until the first successful European manufacture of porcelain in the early 18th century, Europeans relied on imports from China and Japan. Initially, porcelain was only imported in small quantities, and was treated as a semi-precious material, often embellished with gold or silver mounts. It was typically displayed in a kunstkammer setting, with a focus on the size and beauty of individual pieces [1-2]. However, from the beginning of the 17th century, as European trade with East Asia grew, porcelain began to be imported in much larger quantities. Indeed, trade grew so rapidly that it is estimated that the VOC imported three million pieces of Chinese porcelain to Holland in the first half of the 17th century.⁴ This increased availability had the effect of lowering prices and thus making porcelain affordable to a much wider section of society. Consequently, in order to distinguish themselves from their social inferiors, the elite shifted the focus of their displays from quality to quantity and the decorative effect of the ensemble created through pattern, colour and abundance.

The display of porcelain in European nations closely followed the fortunes of the different countries’ merchant fleets. At the beginning of the 17th century, Portugal dominated European trade with Asia, and it was consequently there that the first large-scale displays of porcelain were found. By the mid-17th century, however, the VOC had displaced the Portuguese fleet to become the principal importers of Asian wares, dominating the trade for the next four decades.⁵ As a result, massed displays of porcelain proliferated in the Dutch Republic in the middle decades of the 17th century. From around 1693, due to rising prices, the VOC abandoned the import of Japanese lacquer and Chinese porcelain (having already ceased to import Japanese porcelain in 1683), leaving the trade in the hands of private merchants and individuals.⁶ It was not until the final years of the 17th century that the English East India Company (EIC) began to compete significantly in the Asia trade, until over the course of the 18th century it achieved dominance, enabled by its military control of crucial South Asian ports.⁷ This trade was embedded in the development of state-supported colonisation, a system that relied on the exploitation of local populations, and ultimately their barbaric treatment and dehumanisation.⁸

The fashion for decorating interiors with large quantities of Asian porcelain and lacquer became particularly associated with the women of the Dutch House of Orange-Nassau, thanks to their privileged relationship with the VOC. William III served as chief administrator of the VOC and received dividends from the company, as well as a share of the receipts from privateering (the capture of rival trade ships by the VOC).⁹ Some of the choicest pieces of porcelain and lacquer were reserved by the VOC for the women of the House of Orange, or presented to them as gifts. Their incorporation into interior design was spearheaded by Amalia van Solms-Braunfels (1602-1675), wife of Stadholder Frederick Henry of Orange (1584-1647), and grandmother of William III.¹⁰ Although there had already been some elite French and Dutch interiors decorated with displays of porcelain, including those of Amalia’s mother-in-law Louise de Coligny (1555-1620), fourth wife of William I of Orange (1533–1584), Amalia’s porcelain cabinet and gallery at Noordeinde Palace in The Hague, created in 1632–1634, went a step further, and were fully given over to the display of porcelain. Her porcelain and lacquer cabinet created in 1647 at the Huis ten Bosch, is considered to be the first room entirely furnished in an Asian style [3].¹¹ When Amalia’s four daughters, Louise Henriette (1627-1667), Albertine Agnes (1634-1696), Henriette Catharina (1637-1708), and Maria (1642-1688), married German princes, they exported this distinctive style to their new homes, each building a pleasure palace in which they installed porcelain rooms and other Asian furnishings that echoed their natal homes.¹² Significantly, each was named with the prefix Oranien-: Oranienburg, Oranienstein, Oranienbaum, and Oranienhof [4]. Femke Diercks has argued that the princess’ display of Asian goods was ‘an explicit part of the representation of the dynastic ties with the House of Orange’.¹³ The massed display of India goods was not simply a decorative choice but a visible manifestation of Dutch trade power, and the associated economic and cultural power of the House of Orange-Nassau.

The accession to the English, Scottish and Irish thrones in 1689 of Mary II, Princess of Orange was a catalyst for the migration of this characteristically Dutch style to England [5]. Born Mary Stuart, daughter of James, Duke of York (1633-1701) (later James II) and niece of Charles II (1630-1685), she had left England in 1677, after her marriage at the age of 15 to her first cousin William, Prince of Orange. During 11 formative years in the Dutch Republic, Mary grew to love her marital country, and her assimilation into the House of Orange is evidenced by her adoption of Amalia’s distinctive interiors.¹⁴ She acquired an extensive collection of Chinese and Japanese porcelain, principally through retailers in Amsterdam and The Hague, which she displayed across her palaces. She also installed a lacquer-panelled closet with a mirrored ceiling at Honselaarsdijk (another palace close to The Hague), and had planned to install another such cabinet at the Binnenhof [6].¹⁵ After her return to England, she continued to display porcelain, lacquer and Asian textiles in abundance in her new palaces. In particular, her short-lived but extraordinary Water Gallery at Hampton Court (refurbished 1690, demolished c. 1699) was decorated with porcelain, Delftware, furniture painted blue and white in imitation of porcelain, and a lacquer-panelled closet.¹⁶ Meanwhile, her apartments at Kensington House (later Palace) were filled with over 700 pieces of porcelain, displayed on mantelpieces, on door lintels, on specially-constructed shelves, brackets, etagères, and carved wooden pedestals.¹⁷ Mary’s interiors inspired imitation among the English elite, some of whom displayed massed porcelain and installed lacquer closets in their homes, in political and stylistic homage to their new queen.¹⁸ The fashion spread beyond court circles to those not in her entourage, suggesting that wider London society also played a part in the development of the style.¹⁹

John van Collema was part of that London society. He was one of the principal London retailers of India goods in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, yet very little has been known about him until now, and he has received only occasional mention as a supplier of porcelain to Mary II and the English nobility.²⁰ Since all his surviving bills post-date the Glorious Revolution of 1688/9, it has been assumed that he followed William III and Mary II from the Dutch Republic to England.²¹ In fact, Van Collema moved to London 13 years earlier, in 1676, and his life story can be pieced together from church, probate and other records.²² In addition, the fortunate survival of a large number of Van Collema’s itemised bills allows us to reconstruct his retail offering and the shopping patterns of his customers. By examining Van Collema’s personal and commercial biography, this article illustrates how Anglo-Dutch merchant networks facilitated and helped to create the Dutch fashion for India goods interiors in England. It shows the mechanics of the ‘oscillations’ between the court and the marketplace at the level of the individual, and highlights the contribution of Anglo-Dutch mercantile networks to cultural exchange.

Cover image
Dutch School
Interior of a Chinese shop, fan leaf, c. 1690-1700
Gouache on paper, H 263 mm, W 436 mm
V&A Museum, London

1
Frans Snijders
Still Life with fruit, Wan-Li porcelain and a squirrel, dated 1616
Boston (Massachusetts), Museum of Fine Arts Boston, inv./cat.nr. 1993.566

2
China (made, 1522-1566) and London (mounted, 1599-1600)
The Trenchard Bowl
Porcelain, painted in underglaze blue, with silver-gilt mounts, H 13 cm, W 33.5 cm
London, Victoria & Albert Museum

3
Henan province, assembled and framed in the Leeuwarden palace before 1695
The Frisian stadtholders' lacquer room
Coromandel ebony, H 294.5 cm
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, no. BK-16709

4
Augustinus Terwesten (I)
Allegory on the Triumph of Porcelain in Europe, dated 1697
Oranienburg, Schlossmuseum Oranienburg

5
Willem Wissing
Portrait of Mary II Stuart (1662-1695), c. 1686-1687
Great Britain, private collection The Royal Collection, inv./cat.nr. RCIN 405643

6
Daniël Marot (I) after design of Daniël Marot (I) published by Daniël Marot (I)
Cabinet with paintings and Chinese porcelain, 1712
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv./cat.nr. RP-P-1964-3063