The Global Lives of Things by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317374558
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

FIGURE 5.4b Saucer dish (back).

having been brought from India by the duke’s brother, the viceroy, as a gift to his sister-in-law.34 These must correspond to the strict sense that we give to the word porcelain today. The viceroy’s porcelain gift to the duchess is worth some attention. It is listed in nine entries of the inventory, which correspond to 100 objects.35 These include dishes, bottles, jars, and bowls (‘escudelas ’, bowls with handles) always in pairs or in larger quantities, the largest being a group of thirty bowls, suggesting that porcelain was usually bought in large quantities. Individual porcelain items were less common and more expensive: a bottle and two jars, valued each at 500 reis, are the most valuable items on the list36 while the cheapest objects, a set of eighteen bowls, were not worth more than a total of 300 reis, or 17 reis a piece. The whole porcelain gift itself amounted to a far from impressive 11,520 reis.

Beyond the viceroy’s gift, many other porcelain objects made it to the ducal household. A few (26 objects) were used in the duke’s service but the vast majority belonged to the duchess (324). Together with several other objects (over one thousand), they were kept in a special part of the duchess’s wardrobe called the ‘house of glass and porcelain’ (‘casinha dos vidros e das porcelanas’), where one could find all sorts of jars, dishes, cups, bowls, and bottles made of porcelain, ceramics, glass, crystal and alabaster.37 The available sources are mute as to the way in which these objects were kept in such space and there is no indication that they were displayed in any way. One must therefore be careful to consider this ‘house’ as a proto-form of the later, well-known porcelain cabinets. Nevertheless, the fact that these objects were kept in a special room which was part of the duchess’s personal lodgings indicates the special position they held within the hierarchy of the palace’s contents. It is also worth mentioning that the house of glass and porcelain was a specifically gendered palatial space. Besides the duchess, her daughter-in-law seems to have been starting one for herself, at the time only with six objects, including two expensive bowls (900 reis each) described as ‘very large’.38 The men of the house, the dead duke and his son, had small armouries in their wardrobes instead, duplicating the larger, general armoury of the palace.

From Persia and Turkey, the duke acquired almost exclusively carpets. A total of 73 of his impressive set of carpets came from these sources.39 The most expensive item the duke bought from Turkey was, perhaps not surprisingly, a slave who does not seem to have possessed any particular skill (he worked in the stables) but who took his master’s name, Teodósio.40 All other objects from that country are carpets with values varying, according to size, material, and pattern, between 200 and 28,000 reis. Persian carpets were fewer in number (18 against 55 Turkish) but more expensive, their values ranging from 2,800 to 50,000 reis.

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