Review by Linda R. Shulsky
Porcelain from the “Vung Tau” Wreck: The Hallstrom Excavation

Christiaan J. A. Jörg and Michael Flecker. Porcelain from the “Vung Tau” Wreck: The Hallstrom Excavation. Singapore: Oriental Art, 2001. 172 pp.; 273 color illus. $60.00.

The study of Chinese porcelain has been transformed during the past two decades by the discovery and excavation of shipwrecks. Each wreck encapsulates the trade of a specific period, and many of the wrecks are datable by means of objects found on board other than porcelain. Many of these wrecks have been excavated by commercial salvagers, rather than by underwater archaeologists, and art historians are dependent on their results whether or not we approve of their methods. 

It is far more expensive to carry out underwater excavations than excavations on land, although often the underwater excavations yield more valuable artifacts. This is particularly true in the case of ships transporting Chinese porcelain since, unlike other trade goods such as silks or lacquer, some types of porcelain can remain in seawater for a significant period of time and retain their decoration. The clear glaze on blue-and-white wares may be degraded by seawater, but the underglaze blue decoration will remain. 

The Vung Tau (named for the nearby south Vietnamese province where it was found) was a Chinese junk loaded with porcelain and other cargo. The ship was most likely bound for Batavia when it burned and sank off Vietnam’s coast around 1690. A fisherman found the wreck in 1986, and soon local divers had pulled a large number of porcelain pieces from the foundered vessel (p. 103). Of the 48,000 pieces recovered from the site, many went to antique dealers in Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Eventually these activities were stopped by the Vietnamese government, which arranged for Sverker Hallstrom, a commercial salvager, to excavate the wreck. The expectation was that the sale of salvaged porcelain would be profitable, and it was. After the Vietnamese selected a few hundred pieces for their museums, the remaining 28,000 pieces were sold at Christie’s, Amsterdam, on April 7–8, 1992, where they realized a return of $7.3 million. 

Porcelain from the “Vung Tau” Wreck is divided into two sections. The first section, by Christiaan Jörg, concerns the porcelain. Jörg is one of the world’s premier scholars of Chinese porcelain, and his extensive knowledge of the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Ooost-Indische Compagnie, or VOC) trading records makes him uniquely qualified to discuss inter-Asian trade and to analyze the porcelain from the Vung Tau. 

Jörg begins with a thorough discussion of the Dutch China trade in the seventeenth century and uses engravings of porcelain rooms by Daniel Marot to illustrate Europe’s “passion for porcelain.” It was a revolutionary time for the China trade, as the Dutch took over from the Portuguese, and the VOC began, in 1635, ordering tableware made in specifically Western shapes from the Chinese. (No hard-paste porcelain had, as yet, been produced in Europe.) Most important in this section is Jörg’s discourse on the Chinese junk trade and the founding of Batavia in 1619 to “attract junks and create facilities for Chinese settlers. . . . Chinese merchants joined forces with the Company [VOC] to develop and expand trade networks throughout Southeast Asia” (p. 23). Although the book’s locator map helpfully pinpoints the wreck, an additional map showing the trade routes between China and the Indonesian archipelago would have been useful.

Blanc de chine pieces, storage jars, and porcelain figures were included among the ship’s cargo. The majority of the collection, however, was made up of blue-and-white porcelain hollow and flatwares composed of two main groups: (1) the finer quality wares fired in the kilns of Jingdezhen, and probably intended for Batavia, then the Netherlands or Islamic markets, and (2) a group of blue-and-white wares made in provincial kilns and destined for Southeast Asia. Each shape is discussed in the context of function. For example, the discussion of cups and saucers is particularly interesting because it involves the evolution of tea and coffee drinking in seventeenth-century Europe. 

It is not possible to know whether the porcelain was intended for the Dutch or Islamic market or both. Although Jörg mentions that there are many cups and saucers from the Kangxi period (1662–1722) in the Netherlands, he cautions against assuming that their presence rules out an Islamic connection (p. 57). The pieces’ painted floral designs would be acceptable to Islamic patrons, who could not accept decorations incorporating human or animal figures. The cargo also included hookah bases, kendis, and ewers, which were “not primarily for the Dutch market” (p. 74).

The publication’s photographs are taken from the Christie’s catalog and are generally clear, each item dramatically silhouetted against a white background. The layout is arranged effectively so that featured pieces and relevant text are usually on the same page. Unfortunately, the images do not include accompanying dimensions, and, inconsistently, some illustrated pieces are mentioned in the text, but others are not.

The second part of the book concerns the actual excavation and is written by archaeologist Michael Flecker. Since I am an art historian, not an archaeologist, I am not qualified to judge his report. However, Flecker seems to have organized the excavation properly. He writes: “Commercial salvage outfits have in the past earned a bad reputation, and rightly so, for tearing out everything of financial value without bothering to record anything of the site” (p. 109). Further, he was determined to approach the excavation “systematically, thoroughly, and pragmatically” (p. 109). In spite of his resolve, his collaboration with Hallstrom taints his work in the eyes of the underwater archaeology community. As one of the ethical positions of the Society for Historical Archaeology states: “The collecting, exchanging, buying or selling of archaeological artifacts and research data for the purpose of personal satisfaction or financial gain . . . are declared contrary to the purposes of the society.”^[1] 

The archaeological community feels strongly about cooperating with for-profit excavations. The Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, organized by UNESCO and held in Paris in November 2001, dealt with this issue as follows: “The commercial ex-ploitation of underwater cultural heritage for trade or speculation or its irretrievable dispersal is fundamentally incompatible with the protection and proper management of underwater cultural heritage. Underwater cultural heritage shall not be traded, sold, bought or bartered as commercial goods.”^[2] It is a difficult issue, since it is unrealistic to expect significant funds to be allocated for proper underwater excavations in less-developed countries. Countries without the financial resources to excavate shipwrecks on their own can be tempted to make such arrangements with salvagers. 

The loss of ceramic information through shipwreck salvage can be devastating. Typical of such loss is the Nuestra Señora de la Concepcion, which was wrecked off the Dominican Republic in 1641. Commercial salvagers have excavated this site over several decades, and many pieces of blue-and-white porcelain have been found. The Dominican government made an agreement with the salvage company that the ceramics from the wreck would be shared equally. The pieces that the salvagers kept have probably been sold, along with any record of their existence. Some of these pieces may have been unique and important for porcelain dating, but this information is now lost. 

In comparative terms, the Vung Tau wreck is less of a loss because we have the Christie’s catalog, and a large number of pieces remain in Vietnam. Even so, Jörg discusses the impact of this particular for-profit excavation on the availability of knowledge. Because 28,000 of the 48,000 pieces of porcelain were sold, our record relies on the Christie’s auction catalog (p. 95), which did not depict all of the collection’s various shapes and decorations. The porcelain sold by the auction house has been dispersed all over the world and is lost to scholarly study. Furthermore, there is no information available on the pieces owned by the Vietnamese government. And who knows what the divers left behind?

This book is essential for anyone interested in Chinese porcelain of the late seventeenth century. The thoughtful discussion of each vessel type’s function and the coverage of inter-Asian trade make it an invaluable reference. 

Linda R. Shulsky
Parsons School of Design