China, late Ming Dynasty, circa 1635-45, kraak porcelain with underglaze cobalt blue decoration, diameter 47 cm. The rim of the dish in the De Witte Zwaan collection has alternating wider and narrower panels. These are decorated with floral motifs and oriental landscapes*. To make the products more attractive to the European market, Western motifs were added to the decoration, such as the tulips on this dish, both the pointed Turkish tulip and the wider European tulip. Drawings or prints likely served as models. The name kraak porcelain is derived from the type of ship the Portuguese used to transport their merchandise at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the so-called kraak or caracca.

* The Rijksmuseum owns a virtually identical dish; see Christiaan J.A. Jörg, Chinese Ceramics in the Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1997, cat. no. 41, inv. no. AK-RBK-15794