Love of Porcelain - The Amsterdam Mart - Prices of China in 1615 - Oriental Wares before 1520 - Luxury of the Dutch Colonists - Rich Burghers in New Amsterdam - Inventories of Margarita van Varick and Jacob de Lange - Dutch Merchants in the East -Foreign Views of Dutch Luxury - Dutch Interiors after the Great and Little Masters - House-furnishing by a young married couple - The Linen Chest - Clothes Chests and Cupboards - The Great Kas - The Cabinet - The Toilet - Table-Covers - Foot-warmers - Looking-glasses - Bedsteads - Tables and Chairs - Woods - Kitchen Utensils - Silverware - Household Pets.

IN the preceding chapter, we have seen the constantly increasing importance of porcelain in the Dutch home. In England there was quite as great a demand for this ware among the wealthy classes; but the London East India Company could not supply the demand, and the reason is not far to seek. The Dutch were more energetic, or, at least, more successful in ousting and supplanting the Portuguese, and the Stores of the Indies in Amsterdam became recognized as the headquarters of distribution of Oriental ceramics. In all probability, the English company was not able to import wares of such superior quality as were the Dutch. The Dutch made themselves masters in the Eastern Seas, and British trade had a hard uphill fight there for a century and a half. The Dutch carried things with a very high hand, and the laws of neither God nor man were respected on the course of Vanderdecken from Cape Verde to Japan. The massacre of a few inoffensive English traders at Amboyna aroused quite a coolness in England towards Holland, and caused a good deal of embarrassment to the Government early in the reign of Charles I, which was too busy with home affairs to insist on reparation.

However, the Dutch were only carrying on the traditions of "the spacious times of great Elizabeth," when the methods of the great navigators were frankly piratical. England became well acquainted with Eastern wares when Hawkins, Drake, or Cumberland sailed into Plymouth with the rich freight of Portuguese carracks which they had waylaid around the Azores.

The Dutch love of porcelain was very real: it appears in many a diary, letter and anecdote. In every home, the humble rectory and the house of the rich burgher-master alike, the same desire to own porcelain is found. When one Pastor Arnold Moonen was asked how much he would charge for his translation of Cicero's Epistolae ad familiares, he answered: "Mijnheer! Ik mij in geenen staet bevindende om iet voor mijnen arbeit te kunnen eischen, als diergelijken handel ongewoon, zal enelijk van UEd. verzoeke te voldoen, de raet van die vrouwe volgen, die de Heer mij tot een hulpe gegeven heeft. Deze eischt van mij een nooteboomen kabinet met een stelsel in ftorse-lein, als ijn toebehooren, om daarop te setten, zoo als de vrinden kunnen goetvinden." ("Sir! not being in a position to charge anything for my labour, as this is not an habitual thing, I should take heed of my wife, whom the Lord;hath given me for a helpmate. She wishes to possess a nutwood cabinet with a set of porcelain to go with it, and to place ornaments on the top, if the consistory will grant this ! ") Such a set of porcelain as the good lady required to decorate the top and fill the shelves within, cost at that time as much as 300 double ducats (equal to about £136); but the ladies of that period had desires for fine furniture, dress and fashion that their husbands were often unable to gratify.

The best china-ware was obtainable in Amsterdam only, and English travellers used to buy porcelain there, as they now go to Brussels or Mechlin for lace or Cashmere for shawls. As late as the reign of Charles II, Holland maintained her pre-eminence in this trade. In Henry Sidney's Diary, November 18, 1679 (on the eve of his departure for Holland) we read: "My sister Sunderland spoke to me for a China cup." Later he notes: "I went to see the magazine, the East India Stores."

We have already seen the prices of various kinds of porcelain in Holland in 1653 and 1689. It may be interesting to compare these with English prices earlier in the century. From the bill of lading of the Java (1615) we gather that the prime cost of porcelain was: "Saucer dishes, nearly 2d. a piece; flat sallet dishes, about 3 1/2d.; sallet cups, 31/2d.; posset dishes, 4d.; small (quarter) basins, 1s. gd.; larger (half) basins, 2s. 6d.; largest (whole) basins, 5s."

This was evidently china-ware of the cheapest kind, and the prices show that porcelain was now on the market in such quantities as to drive out the old pewter plates and dishes from the homes of the middle classes as well as the aristocracy. During the first quarter of the seventeenth century, however, the Oriental wares to be found in opulent houses were by no means confined to china-ware. The art furniture brought from the East was varied and choice.

The inventory of a Dutch or English noble of wealth of that period shows the same taste for Eastern fabrics, lacquer and porcelain, and evidences the elegance that made Madame de Rambouillet famous in France. As an example, let us take the Earl of Northampton, who was famous and infamous in late Elizabethan and early Jacobean days. He died in 1619. Among his possessions we find the following goods of Oriental manufacture:

"A cupbord containynge seven parcels of purslane cups trimmed with silver and guilte valued at £12; a field bedstead of China worke, black and silver, branched with silver, with the Arms of the Earle of Northampton upon the headpiece, the toppe and valance of purple velvett striped downe with silver laces and knots of silver, the frindge blewe silk and silver with 8 cuppes and plumes spangled suteable, the five curtains of purple taffata with buttons and lace of silver, the counterpoint of purple damaske suteable laced; one China cushen imbrodred with birdes, beastes and flowers, the ground of white Grogeron lined with yellow taffeta, 1 os.; thirteen yeardes and a quarter of purple gold velvett, China with flower-de-luces and diamond work, £8 13s. 4d.; a China striped quilt of beastes and antiques, the ground whice calico frindged about with a straw coloured frindge, £5; another China quilte stayned and spotted in colours £4; another China quilt stitched in checquer work with yellow silke, the ground white, £4; and a China carpett of several colours, the ground white and weaved in with antiques of several colours lined with watchett taffata, £4.