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ABSTRACT
All over Southeast Asia is found a particular type of coarse Chinese export porcelain traditionally known as ‘Swatow’ ware but now more accurately identified as originating from Zhangzhou, dating from the late Ming period, from the end of the 16th to the early 17th centuries. One characteristic type of large Zhangzhou dish had a central circle with eight smaller circles around it, all filled with inscriptions in Arabic script. The marked visual similarity with the great seal of Aceh, which over a period of 250 years always gave the name of the sovereign in a central circle surrounded by eight small circles containing the names of illustrious forebears, gave rise to the tradition that these Zhangzhou calligraphic plates were specially ordered from China by the rulers of Aceh in the shape of their seal. A close chronological examination belies this widely held belief, as the Zhangzhou plates were largely produced before the Acehnese ‘ninefold seal’ was created in the mid 17th century, most likely in the reign of Sultanah Tajul Alam Safiatuddin Syah (r.1641–1675). Indeed, conversely, the presence of these prestigious and striking Chinese plates in Aceh may even have contributed to the rich visual repertoire of significant ninefold forms from which the royal Acehnese seal was born.
ABSTRAK
Di seluruh Asia Tenggara ditemukan jenis porselen kasar Cina yang secara tradisional dikenal sebagai buatan ‘Swatow’, tetapi kini diketahui berasal dari Zhangzhou, dari akhir periode Ming, pada akhir abad ke-16 hingga awal abad ke-17. Salah satu jenis khas piring Zhangzhou berukuran besar memiliki lingkaran tengah dengan delapan lingkaran kecil di sekelilingnya, semuanya berisi tulisan dalam aksara Arab. Gambaran ini sangat mirip dengan pola stempel atau cap raja Aceh, yang selama kurun waktu 250 tahun selalu mencantumkan nama penguasa dalam lingkaran tengah yang dikelilingi delapan lingkaran kecil berisi nama-nama leluhur termasyhur. Kemiripan ini melahirkan kepercayaan bahwa piring berkaligrafi Arab dari Zhangzhou ini dipesan khusus dari Tiongkok oleh raja Aceh menurut bentuk capnya. Namun, penelusuran kronologis yang cermat memungkiri keyakinan yang dianut secara luas tersebut karena sebagian besar piring Zhangzhou ternyata diproduksi sebelum ‘cap sembilan’ Aceh dibuat pada pertengahan abad ke-17, kemungkinan besar pada masa pemerintahan Sultanah Tajul Alam Safiatuddin Syah (memerintah pada 1641–1675). Sebaliknya, kehadiran piring-piring Cina yang bernilai tinggi dan mencolok ini di Aceh bahkan mungkin telah berkontribusi terhadap kekayaan repertoar visual berupa sembilan lingkaran yang melahirkan cap kerajaan Aceh.
Acknowledgements
This article began life as part of my doctoral study on Malay seals, and for the stimulus needed to develop it for publication, and for help with sources and advice, I would like to thank James Bennett and Eline van den Berg. For valuable input, corrections, comments and advice I am beholden to Barbara Leigh, Michael Feener, Ed McKinnon, Tai Yew Seng, Dick van der Meij, Masykur Syafruddin, Luisa Elena Mengoni and Ursula Sims-Williams. My deepest gratitude is owed to Mirjam Shatanawi and John Klein Nagelvoort for so generously and tirelessly sharing their knowledge and sources relating to Aceh. Needless to say, any errors are entirely my responsibility.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Sikureueng is the Acehnese word for nine, and literally means ‘minus one’ or ‘one less [than ten]’, equivalent to the Malay sa-kurang (cf. Siegel Citation1979: 28).
2 Snouck Hurgronje Citation1906: 1.129.
3 MNI 13209, reproduced in Kumar and McGlynn Citation1996: 95; Sundari Citation2009: 115; Europalia Citation2017: 101.
4 This brief outline of Swatow wares is from Stroeber (Citation2015: 4, 13), who has stressed that now that the kiln sites have been identified, this ware should properly be termed ‘Zhangzhou’ and not ‘Swatow’.
5 Friedrich Wilhelm (Willem) Stammeshaus (1881–1957) was born in Sigli, Aceh, of a Dutch father and a Chinese mother from Java. Willem Stammeshaus served in the colonial army and subsequently became a civil servant in Aceh, building up a substantial collection of artefacts. In 1915, the Aceh Museum was established in Kuta Raja (now Banda Aceh) by the Governor of Aceh Gen. H.N.A. Swart; Stammeshaus’s personal collection was placed on display, and he served as curator of the Museum. However, when Stammeshaus retired, funds could not be found to acquire his collection of 1,300 objects to keep it in Aceh, and so in 1931 it accompanied him back to the Netherlands and was sold to the Colonial Institute in Amsterdam. It is now held in the Tropenmuseum (Aanwinsten Citation1932; Brinkgreve and Leijfeldt Citation2017: 284; Nagelvoort Citation2019).
6 Teuku Mansur (d.1932) was an imam and writer from Leupueng, in the the Lhoknga region on the northwestern coast of Aceh, whose work in Acehnese, Sanggamara, was published in 1924. Teuku Mansur was well known in colonial circles for his profound knowledge of Acehnese traditions, and after meeting Stammeshaus in 1924 became a close confidant, as reflected in correspondence and objects now in the Tropenmuseum (pers. comm. Mirjam Shatanawi and John Klein Nagelvoort, 11 April 2021).
7 Een groot porseleinen bord (pinggan tjab sikoereuëng), waarop een voorstelling van een negenvoudig zegel van Atjeh, waarschijnlijk op bestelling in China vervaardigd (Aanwinsten Citation1932: 77, ).
8 Handwritten notebook of F.W. Stammeshaus, after 1925, p. 136 (information courtesy of J.K. Nagelvoort, 10 April 2021).
9 Yamin Citation1956: 20, [fig.] 50; the plate reproduced is that now held in the Tropenmuseum as TM 674-51.
10 On the Indonesian provenances of items in the Princessehof Museum, see Berg (Citation2020).
11 Adhyatman cites a related work by Muhammad Yamin, his Atlas Sejarah (1957).
12 Adhyatman (Citation1999: 33) further notes of these dishes, ‘In Holland they are called Aceh dishes as many were found in the region’. However, Nanne Ottema (Citation1943: 233–234), the ceramics expert and collector who founded the Princessehof Museum, uses the term Atjeh-borden or Atjehschotels (‘Aceh plates’) to refer to a different style of Chinese export porcelain, namely poor quality 19th century plates from Jingdezhen with floral decoration on green enamel (with many thanks to Eline van den Berg for this reference).
13 See, for example, Christie’s, Hong Kong, Fine Chinese Ceramics, 27 October 2003, lot 604 <https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-4177999>; Christie’s, Amsterdam, Asian Art, 21 November 2007, lot 10 <https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-4991035>; Amir Mohtashemi, London, 2013 <http://www.alaintruong.com/archives/2013/05/31/27299560.html>; Nagel, Stuttgart, Fine Asian Art, 8 December 2020, lot 518 <http://www.alaintruong.com/archives/2021/02/05/38799002.html>. Accessed 29 November 2023.
14 De groote cirkel in het midden bevat schlechtgevormed letterteekens, zoodat het zinsverband niet kan worden ontcijferd. De woorden 'Sjah' en 'Akbar' die eenigszins te herkennen zijn, doen vermoeden, dat hier sprake kan zijn van een nabootsing van een vorstenzegel (Aanwinsten Citation1932: Plate facing , located between pp. 76 and 77).
15 2000 AE85728, acquired from S. Marchant & Son, London (Sargent Citation2012: 168–169, Fig. 65).
16 GAM 0914, GRV 1929-331(Harrisson Citation1979: Figs. 226, 227).
17 TM 674-51.
18 MNI 1495 (Orsoy de Flines 1947: Pl. 64; Yamin Citation1956: 20, fig. 50; Adhyatman Citation1981: 239; Sundari Citation2009: 103; Europalia Citation2017: 100).
19 IAMM 1998.1.3939 (Barakat Citation2003: 29).
20 MN BKP.198.1979.IS(4), BKP.200.1979.IS(6), BKP.204.1979.IS(10), BKP.206.1979.12(12) (Othman 1981: Pls.5, 7, 9, 10).
21 AKTC Citation2007: 42, cat. 16.
22 EA1978.981; given by Gerald Reitlinger, 1978.
23 C.49-1932; given by W.M. Tapp, who had purchased it in 1922 for £5.
24 1982.209; given by Dr and Mrs James H. Blanton.
25 OKS 1979-033.
26 IND 01317 (Bennett Citation2005: 235, 296 cat. 159).
27 AGSA 20154C32; acquired in Medan, north Sumatra, promised gift of Michael Abbott and Sue Crafter (Bennett and Kelty 2014: 164).
28 Cat. no. 91/35 (Sarawak Citation1992: 96; Chin Citation1988: Fig. 138[?]).
29 MNI 1566 (Orsoy de Flines 1947: Pl. 64).
30 BKP.199. 1979.IS(5), BKP.202.1979.IS(8) (Othman Citation1981: Pls. 6, 8).
31 POT 1433 (Savage-Smith Citation1997: 1.103–104)
32 TKS 15/3069 (Savage-Smith Citation1997: 1.102 n. 8).
33 ACM 2014-00703 and 2011-02271.
34 MN BKP.198.1979.IS(4), MNI 1495, and plate from a private collection exhibited in 2009 at the Tokyo National Museum exhibition Gosu-Akae Overglaze Enamel Ware <https://www.tnm.jp/modules/r_free_page/index.php?id=630&lang=en>.
35 Two other holders of the post of Khān-i Khānān mentioned were ‘Abd al-Rahim’s own father Mirza Bairam Khan, noted by Hunt’s informant Habibuddin (Hunt Citation1916: 23), and Mun‘im Khan, who held the title from 1560 to 1575 (Savage-Smith Citation1997: 1.101).
36 His seal reading Muhr-i ‘Abd al-Rahīm Khān ‘adam tabdīl [sanah] … 30 ‘seal of ʻAbd al-Rahim Khan, steadfast in loyalty, year 30 (1585/86)’, is impressed in British Library, Add. 23564, f. 2r; it is likely that ‘Abd al-Rahim also had other seals (pers. comm. Ursula Sims-Williams, 5 April 2021).
37 Impressed in a copy of the Khamsa of Nizami from the royal Mughal library now held in the British Library, Or. 6810, f. 303r (Sims-Williams Citation2021: 114).
38 Porseleinen bord in uiterlijk overeenkomende met het negenvoudig Sultanszegel; in stede van Sultansnamen zijn Koeran-spreuken aangebracht. Waarschijnlijk in China vervaardigd naar aanwijzingen of in opdracht van Atjehers (Aanwinsten Citation1932: Plate facing , located between pp. 76 and 77).
39 The movement of these Johor or Chinese ships was recorded in Dutch records as the vessels would have been issued with passes by the VOC (Volker Citation1954: 205, n. 12).
40 Volker (Citation1954: 206). NB see Cheng (Citation1972: 147–148) for information that the kilns at Jingdezhen continued to produce porcelains with Arabic calligraphy into the 18th century, well after the end of production in Zhangzhou.
41 Gallop (Citation2019: 59); the grounds for this argument will be presented in a forthcoming article on the Great Seal of Aceh.
42 Cf. Ettinghausen (Citation1974: 302), for the view that many Arabic inscriptions remained mostly unread, for they functioned primarily as symbols, affirming the communal faith, rather than as a means of communicating information.
43 Bennett (Citation2011: 54–55); with thanks to Dick van der Meij for noting this congruency.
44 For further details see Gallop Citation2019: 35–36; Gallop and Porter Citation2012: 166–168.
45 In the handwritten catalogue of the Aceh Museum in 1915, this plate is listed as no. 165, with the note: in bruikleen van den Imeum van Lam Lhom, IV mk. Lho Nga, onderafdeling Lho Nga, aan genoemde Imeum een bruikleenbewijs afgegeven, Augustus 1915, ‘on loan from the Imam of Lam Lhom, IV [Mukim], Lho Nga, sub-district Lho Nga, to the said Imam a certificate of loan was given, August 1915’. There is diagonal line drawn through this entry in the catalogue, and a question mark in blue pencil next to it. According to J.K. Nagelvoort, the plate did not appear to be in the Museum when the new catalogue was made, and it was not recorded again, perhaps indicating that it had been returned to its owner. With many thanks to J.K. Nagelvoort for this valuable information, and to M. Shatanawi for help in reading the text, 8 September 2021.
46 B. Leigh, pers. comm., 1 April 2021.
47 For information arising out of the Aceh Geohazards Project of the Earth Observatory of Singapore <https://earthobservatory.sg/project/aceh-geohazards-project-interaction-geohazards-and-settlements-through-past-millennium-aceh> I am grateful to co-investigators Michael Feener for confirming he had never seen an intact ninefold Swatow plate in Aceh; to E. Edwards McKinnon on the presence of Swatow sherds in Aceh; and to Tai Yew Seng for information that although the 5,000 sherds documented at the village of Lambaro Skep on the north coast of Aceh comprise a very high proportion of nearly 50% Zhangzhou wares, to date no sherd from a ‘ninefold’ calligraphy plate has yet been positively identified (pers. comm. 4 April 2021).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Annabel Teh Gallop
Annabel Teh Gallop is head of the Southeast Asia section at the British Library, London. Email: [email protected]