My personal recommendations on good books to add to your library
Ming Porcelain // Ship Wreck Cargoes
This book is a highly readable presentation of Sten Sjöstrands latest maritime excavation adventure. It details the finding and recovery of a cargo of Chinese Wanli style “kraak” porcelain. The book sets a new world standard on how to report on maritime salvage operations.
Blue and White // Ship Wreck Cargoes // Transitional 1620-1683
Sheaf, Colin & Kilburn, Richard, The Hatcher Porcelain Cargoes. The Complete Record.
Overview and general presentation of the two first of Michael Hatchers porcelain cargoes, the Ming junk cargo (c. 1643-1646) from a seventeenth century Chinese junk, and the Dutch East Indiaman Geldermalsen that foundered in 1752.
I think this is a good reference for the Hatcher cargoes, in particular the 1640’s junk. This book and the actual auction catalogs covers it very well. I would not call this book indispensable but the color pictures of the 1640s junk cargo are good and considering the precise dating of the pieces this is a valuable reference.
192 pages
212 illustrations of which 138 in color
Phaidon/Christies, 1988.
ISBN. 0 7148 8046 9
Chinese Export Porcelain // Ship Wreck Cargoes
Quite a lot of the cargo consists of pieces that in the antiques trade usually has been given the label Kangxi. Since quite a number of the pieces actually carries the Yongzheng (1723-1735) reign mark, that theory obviously needs to go. This is a really good reference book for this expansive period in the history of Chinese Export porcelain finding its palace right between the Vung Tau cargo c. 1700 and the Gotheborg cargo 1745.
The book is of 258 pages (96 pages of text, 386 photographs, and 21 pages of ceramics designs) and many line drawings. The book was based on the report complied by the Excavations Committee together with data and records relating to the artifacts collected by the two provincial museums of Binh Thuan and Ca Mau, from 1998-2000.
The contents includes the archaeological excavations of Ca Mau shipwreck, the artifacts recovered from the shipwreck site and maps.
Author: Dinh Chién, Nguyén,
Museum of Vietnamese History and Ca Mau Provincial Museum (2003),
Language: Vietnamese and English,
Blue and White // Chinese Export Porcelain // Ming Porcelain // Ship Wreck Cargoes
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Periplus Publishing London (December 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1902699351
ISBN-13: 978-1902699356
Product Dimensions: 13.8 x 9.5 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 4.4 pounds
Chinese Export Porcelain // Ship Wreck Cargoes
Porcelain from the Vung Tau Wreck: The Hallstrom Excavation
In the 1690s, a Chinese junk bound for Batavia and laden with ceramics for export to Europe, caught fire and foundered off Vung Tau, Vietnam. In the 1990s – and with the sanction of the Vietnamese government — a Vietnamese/Swedish team explored the wreck. A vast amount of mainly blue-and-white porcelain was found, and much of it was finally auctioned in Amsterdam, the cargo’s original destination. This illustrated expert study describes the 17th century export trade of China-Batavia-Holland and details the artefacts found. In part 2 the ship itself is presented and the methods and course of the excavation are set out. With drawings and photographs, biblography and index.
This book is divided into two sections: the art historical study of the ceramic hoard and it place in the history of European trade with Asia and China and the excavation process. It also presents data and commentary on the systematic underwater fieldwork, documentation and the raising of the cargo.
Format: Hardcover, 172 pages
Published: 2001, Singapore
ISBN: 981045208X
Lost at Sea: The Strange Route of the Lena Shoal Junk, by Franck Goddio, Monique Crick, Peter Lam, Stacey Pierson and Rosemary Scott
