Featured Shipwreck Pottery

Good afternoon
I found this beautiful shard of pottery at a Market here in Cape Town today. It is a piece that must have come from a sunken ship on the west coast of South Africa. Any idea of age and origin will be welcome.
Jannie

 

With those double rings and white clay it could be Chinese.
Chinese and other Asian utilitarian ceramics were used by ships of all nationalities that traveled the Indian Ocean, because they contained food and wine that was bought in Asian ports. Those supplies were 'packaged' in (stoneware) ceramics for safe storage. Some pieces stayed on board all the way back home.

 

Second vote for Chinese here.

 

Looks like a smiling rabbit!

 

Why must it be a shipwreck? It doesn’t specifically like it was under the ocean for hundreds or more years. Not that everything does after that but yours doesn’t. I wish I could remember my source but I saw something once that talked about a large amount of Chinese porcelain being in at least several places in Africa back sometime in the 16th-18th century. I can’t recall exactly when or where. There were immensely rich kingdoms in Africa though and they did trade with China or at least with folks that did trade with China. My memory stinks. I’m not just talking about colonial regimes either. There were native African people of power that appreciated Chinese porcelain. It can still be found in some places and in some museums. They liked to put it on the walls or even build it into their walls if I recall correctly. The Muslim world really loved Chinese porcelain going back many hundreds or even thousands of years. The Chinese made many porcelain pieces based on Muslim metal forms. I don’t think that’s the connection to Africa either though. Most of its been stolen or looted or put on museums but there are places in African hands that still have old Chinese porcelain. For some reason Mali is coming to mind.

As for your fragment I don’t know where it’s from. I have a great Mottahedeh repro of a Japanese plate with a somewhat similar rabbit though. I’ll take a pic and post it. I guess yours is more likely Chinese. At this point in 2024 though it doesn’t necessarily have a historical connection.

 

After digging it out I guess our rabbits aren’t all that similar other than being a stylistically in that old Asian ballpark.

 

Jannie's shard is stoneware, not porcelain. Stoneware means it was utilitarian ware, of which thousands of pieces were shipped along the coast of South Africa.
Chinese porcelain was shipped around the Cape etc as well, on its way to the Netherlands, but we are talking stoneware here. It is likely that it came from a Dutch or Portuguese ship that was supplied with fresh water and food in one of the Asian ports on its return voyage from East Asia.

Arab and Persian traders have been trading with China and SE Asia for thousands of years. But as far as I know they never visited the Cape or the west coast of South Africa, where this piece was found.
Africa is huge, with a great diversity of cultures. The African kingdoms you heard about must have been the Arab influenced kingdoms in West and East Africa. Some of those were indeed in Mali, but all were very far from South Africa.
Part of East Africa was colonised by Oman, which had its royal seat in Zanzibar for some time. But again, Zanzibar is far from South Africa.

 

I didn’t mean to specify porcelain solely. Chinese ceramics would be more accurate. I get that South Africa isn’t near east, west, or North Africa. Everything you said makes sense buts it’s 2024. Many things are now located in places other than where they started life hundreds of years ago. The location it was purchased is more likely to be irrelevant to its source than relevant to its source in this day and age probably. She found it in a market, not in a hole in the ground. It may be a shipwreck piece from the coast of South Africa theres just nothing specifically pointing to that at all unless the vendor told op something like that.

edit: great historical context btw.

 

True. On the other hand, the most logical explanation is often the right one.

I think Jannie is a he. It is usually a man's name in SA.

 

Close enough!

 

To this day, restaurant china is made extra thick to survive the constant wear and tear. It makes total sense that utilitarian ware for ship use would be tough stuff.

 

Interesting discussion it's an old pot but I don't think this has ever been under the sea for an extended period, the wear looks wrong.

The rabbit is a darling detail!

 

Ahahahaha! Touché. Lol

 

It actually doesn’t even look like it’s been broken for hundreds of years, let alone under the sea. Anything’s possible though.

 

I’ve seen dug and mudlarked sherds that were astonishingly pristine. Mud protects.

 

I have one of the Geldermalsen/Nanking Cargo porcelain bowls. It looks as good as when the ship went under in 1752