Art Eyewitness Essay: The Etruscans and Ancient Art

The Etruscans and Ancient Art
An Art Eyewitness Essay, Part I

By Ed Voves

The word "mysterious" is often used to describe the Etruscans. These ancient people, who lived in central Italy, certainly offer many features of their way of life and religion which are difficult to interpret or explain. Yet, there is nothing essentially "mysterious" about the Etruscans.

The Etruscans were not an Indo-European people as were the Greek and Romans. They emerged, as a group of prosperous city-states at the end of the "Dark Age" following the fall of the Bronze Age civilizations, 1200-900 B.C.

Basing their power and wealth on huge reserves of iron ore and copper, the Etruscans traded readily with the Greeks and the Phoenicians. Masters at adaptation, as we will discuss, the Etruscans borrowed artistic motifs when these struck their fancy, rejected those that didn't and maintained a distinctive cultural style for almost five hundred years, 750 to 300 B.C.

Appliqué depicting the Sun God Usil, 500–475 B.C. © Getty Museum 

Unlike other non-Indo-Europeans, such as the Finns and Hungarians, the Etruscan language has yet to be traced to its origins. But the same is true of the Basques, another non-Indo-European people. There is no link, however, between the Basques and the Etruscans, further heightening the "mystery" of the latter.

One of the truly perplexing aspects about the Etruscans is the scarcity of museum exhibitions dealing with their remarkable civilization. In 1985, cultural officials in Italy proclaimed the "Year of the Etruscans." A full-slate of exhibitions was organized but, to the best of my knowledge, none traveled to the United States. Although I have been on the lookout for a major exhibit on the Etruscans over the last decade or more, I have yet to spot one.

I have done a good bit of reading about the Etruscans, notably Michael Grant's authoritative 1980 account. But there is no substitute for looking at art!

Fortunately, several museums in the U.S. have magnificent collections of Etruscan art and artifacts. It was at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston that I first encountered the Etruscans in 1986. Since then, visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the University of Pennsylvania Museum and several other art collections have enabled me to study the rise of the Etruscans and their "fall" to the power of Rome.

In the autumn of 1986, I made a brief trip to Boston to see some friends. I decided to visit the MFA to view their great collection of European paintings only to discover that the European wing was being renovated. This left me with time to explore the rest of the museum but once I entered the galleries for ancient art, I stayed there for the rest of the day.

Etruscan sarcophagi from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston © MFA Boston

There I discovered the Etruscans. Two burial structures - sarcophagi - gripped my imagination - and have never let go. 

These stone coffins testify to the Etruscan focus on death and the afterlife. Discovered during the 1840's, both had been created for members of the same family. The sarcophagus on the right (above) is inscribed with the names "Thanchvil Tarnai and her husband Larth Tetnies, son of Arnth Tetnies and Ramtha Vishnai." Scholars believe that the couple on the older, less-finely sculpted, sarcophagus are the named parents, Arnth Tetnies and Ramtha Vishnai.

Deciphering Etruscan writing is no small feat, as I will briefly comment on below. However important, these details about the powerful Tetnies clan are less significant than the overwhelming sensation of sharing in the spiritual lives of people long dead. This was very palpable to me, when I found myself in their "presence" back in 1986.

What is portrayed on each sarcophagus lid is the "eternal embrace." Here we see two human beings who shared life and love during their distant era. They are united in death but also in everlasting life. It is worth noting that the equality in the relative size, husband and wife, reflects the fact that women in Etruscan society enjoyed social freedoms far beyond those of their counterparts in Athens during the late fourth to early third century B.C.

Etruscan Bronze Chariot, 6th century B.C © Metropolitan Museum of Art

A similar "stand-out" Etruscan experience comes by way of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Monteleone Chariot has been a fixture of the Met since 1903 and I never cease to marvel at it during my many visits to that wonderful museum.

The Monteleone Chariot was made early in the sixth century B.C., at the height of Etruscan power. The Etruscans were formidable warriors, but generally fought on foot. Chariots were used for ceremonies and celebrations of war victories. However, the era of the chariot's construction also witnessed the first stirring of Rome. Rising in revolt, the Romans cast out their Etruscan king, Tarquinius, in 507 B.C. Etruscan victory parades were to diminish in number as the Republic of Rome grew in power.

The bronze metalwork of the chariot was mounted on a wooden frame. Except for a tell-tale fragment of oak, none of the timber survived the long centuries during which the chariot rested in an underground tomb. Unearthed by accident in 1902, it was quickly purchased by Italian art dealers. The first director of the Metropolitan Museum, Luigi de Cesnola, was a well-connected archaeologist and he bought the chariot  - legally - before the Italian government could intervene.

Detail of Etruscan Bronze Chariot © Metropolitan Museum of Art

This spectacular bronze vehicle is decorated with scenes from the life of the Greek hero, Achilles. The front of the chariot car shows Achilles receiving a new set of armor, helmet and shield from his mother Thetis. With this battle gear, Achilles will fight his famous duel with the Trojan hero, Hektor. 

The artistic style of the chariot's Achilles motifs is an almost pure example of Greek-Archaic era art. Some scholars have speculated that the chariot might have been made in one of the Greek colonies of southern Italy and then sold or sent as a gift to the Etruscans. However, the Etruscans greatly favored the Archaic style in their own art, so much so that they retained it even after the Greeks had innovated more natural and humanistic representation during the fifth century B.C.

Bronze Statuette of a Young Woman, 6th century B.C. 

© Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Etruscans borrowed widely from the Greek merchants and city-state builders in southern Italy and Sicily. The Etruscans also maintained close trading and cultural relationships with the Phoenicians, so much that their ethnic origins have been frequently - and  mistakenly - traced to the Middle East. Yet, the Etruscans'  basic attitudes to life and the after-life, society and eternity, were formed long before the interaction with seafarers from Greece and the Phoenician city-states began in earnest during the seventh century B.C. 

Of the Etruscans, Michael Grant wrote:

They were temperamentally different from the Greeks, and in consequence had different needs and customs... Far from requiring the delineations of the human body, whether idealized or realistic, the Etruscans' own conception of art involved highly formalized, dream-like patterns, and sometimes, grotesquely caricatured exaggerations and elongations. The balances and proportions, the clear frameworks and logical formal principles that were the essential features of Attic classicism held no interest for them at all.

The Etruscans also adapted the Greek alphabet for their unique language. Since the Greeks had done the same, borrowing the Phoenician lettering system, this cultural transfer does not denote a failure on the part of the Etruscans to innovate or create for themselves.

Terracotta Vase in the Shape of a Cockerel, ca. 650–600 B.C.

 © Metropolitan Museum of Art

One of the most delightful - and significant - Etruscan artifacts in the Met's collection is a small vase, inscribed with the twenty-six letters of the Etruscan alphabet. It almost certainly was an ink bottle since the head acts as a stopper and could be attached to the bird’s body by a cord. The missing tail, curving downward to form a third foot, would have kept the ink bottle from tipping over.

Detail of Terracotta Vase in the Shape of a Cockerel

© Metropolitan Museum of Art

When the Etruscans adapted the Greek alphabet for their own use, the process followed the same pattern as their incorporation of elements of Greek art. The Etruscans found writing a key tool in managing their expanding trade with Greek and Phoenician merchants and with their Latin neighbors and subjects. Literacy, likewise, was valued for its uses in religious practices, the Etruscans being notably devoted to the rituals and traditions honoring their gods.

This emphasis on putting their faith into practice may account for the large number of "speaking objects" which record the names of Etruscans in association with specific artifacts. These inscriptions are likely to have been written, painted or incised on objects of value to record the names of donors of gifts to Etruscan temples. 

Terracotta inscribed Alabastron, ca. 600 B.C. © Metropolitan Museum

 

Alternatively, inscribing one's name on a precious commodity like the perfume vessel or alabastron (above) might also signify that it was a high-status present (or bribe) to an influential person who might need to be reminded who the gift was "speaking" for. In the case of this alabasteron from the Met's collection, it is incised on the rim with the words "I am the gift of Licinius Hirsunaie."

The Etruscan alphabet undoubtedly played a large role in the transactions of a collaborative religious "league' or council which was held once a year at a sacred site called the Fanum Voltumnae. 

The Etruscans, however, never developed any comparable degree of political unity. The individual Etruscan city-states made alliances with the Greeks and with the Phoenicians, based in Carthage, but seldom cooperated among themselves. In 396 B.C., the Roman Republic launched a devastating assault on Veii, one of the leading Etruscan cities. Despite the fact that the Romans had been besieging Veii for years, none of the other Etruscan city-states made any effort to assist Veii. The destruction of Veii marked the first great military victory of Rome - and the eventual downfall of Etruscan civilization.

This lack of political unity among the Etruscans is reflected in the lack of evidence that they composed sophisticated works of history or philosophy as did the Greeks and Romans. Nothing of their literature, such as it was, has survived - only a mass of inscriptions, most of which are still undeciphered.

Long after the Etruscan city states fell under the hegemony of Rome, the Emperor Claudius (10 B.C.-54 A.D) wrote a twenty-volume history of the Etruscans but sadly it was not preserved. Had this tome by Claudius survived, it would likely have included a sermon or two reproving the Etruscans for their love of the "good life." 

The Etruscans did indulge themselves in golden jewelry and prestige imported goods from Greece and the Middle East. They became supremely gifted goldsmiths themselves, making it often difficult to tell if spectacular works such as the golden bracelet (below) were imported or made in an Etruscan workshop. 

Gold Votive Bracelet, ca. 675 B.C.-650 B.C. © British Museum

This bracelet, one of a pair in the collection of the British Museum, is a classic example of the "orientalizing" influence of the Phoenicians on the Etruscans, and the Greeks, too, which  occurred during the seventh century B.C. Close inspection of the bracelet shows designs of a "Master of Animals" flanked by lions  and three women, each grasping a tree-like plant. These motifs are clearly of Phoenician or Syrian origin but the bracelet could well have been made by an Etruscan craftsman.

Detail of Gold Votive Bracelet, ca. 675 B.C.-650 B.C. © British Museum

We have vivid evidence of the Etruscan love of the "good life" in the spectacular tomb paintings which have been preserved. These rare surviving paintings show how the Etruscans viewed life after death as a continuation of the delights of this life.

"Tomb of the Leopards," Tarquina, Univ.of Michigan Art Images 

Depictions of feasting and revelry on the walls of Etruscan tombs appealed mightily to modern-day writers and artists. So too, did the Etruscans' quirky, unconventional rejection of "Golden-age" Greek classicism. D.H. Lawrence wrote that "if you love the odd spontaneous forms that are never to be standardized, go to the Etruscans,"

Alberto Giacometti was certainly one of the premier twentieth century artists who heeded Lawrence's advice. Giacometti closely studied ancient art, as was noted in the major retrospective held at the Guggenheim Museum in 2018. The elongation of such Etruscan works as the third century bronze now called "Shadow of the Evening" was such an influence on Giacometti's signature figures that it might seem too obvious to merit commentary here.

 (Top) "Shadow of the Evening" Statue, Volterra, 3rd century B.C.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2018) Alberto Giacometti's The Chariot, 1950

The close artistic affinity of Giacometti's The Chariot for "Shadow of the Evening" should not distract us from grasping the creative process displayed in both. Each of these works confirms Lawrence's appraisal of the Etruscan rejection of "standardization" in favor of an art aesthetic of their own.  And just as Etruscan artists adapted Greek and Phoenician art to suit their practice, so did Giacometti respond to the Etruscans. The result in both cases was a strikingly unusual and appealing work of art.

The Etruscan achievement in the visual arts is too vast to be properly treated in a short essay like this. I plan to follow with further essays, focusing on aspects of Etruscan art such as their masterful Bucchero pottery which was popular throughout the ancient world. 

For the present, let us conclude with Michael Grant's assessment of Etruscan art:

Uninterested in the classical principles of propriety, they went all out to capture the instant, unrepeatable visual flash... In a world of overpowering divine forces, what had gone before or would come after did not interest their artists. Instead, they expressed the world of their imaginings by inconsequential improvisations, characterized by force and fantasy and charm.

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves. Original Photo: Anne Lloyd. All rights reserved                                                                                           

Images courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Introductory Image:

Terracotta Statue of a Young Woman, late 4th century B.C. Terracotta H. 29 /7/16 (74.8 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art. purchased with Rogers Fund, 1916. #16:141 © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Appliqué depicting the Sun God Usil, 500–475 B.C. Bronze: 20.7 × 16.5 cm, 1340 g (8 1/8 × 6 1/2 in., 2.9542 lb.). Getty Museum # 2017.126 © The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California

Sarcophagus and Lid with Portraits of Husband and Wife, from Vulci, late 4th–early 3rd century B.C. Volcanic tuff stone: Height : 88 cm (34 5/8 in.); width: 73 cm (28 3/4 in.); length: 210 cm (82 11/16 in.). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Museum purchase with funds by exchange from a Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius C. Vermeule III. #1975.799

Sarcophagus and Lid with Husband and Wife, from Vulci, 350–300 B.C. Travertine stone: Height: 93.3 cm.(36 3/4 in.); width: 117.4 cm. (46 1/4 in.); length: 213.8 cm  (84 3/16 in.) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Museum purchase with funds donated by Mrs. Gardner Brewer & by contribution & the Benjamin Pierce Cheney Donation. #86.145a-b

Etruscan Bronze Chariot inlaid with Ivory, 2nd quarter of the 6th century B.C. Bronze, ivory: H. 51 9/16 in. (130.9 cm), length of pole 82 1/4 in. (209 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art. purchased with Rogers Fund, 1903. #:03.23.1 © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bronze Statuette of a Young Woman, late 6th century B.C. Bronze: H. 11 9/16 in. (29.4 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917. #17.190.2066 © Metropolitan Museum of Art

Terracotta Vase in the Shape of a Cockerel, ca. 650–600 B.C. Terracotta bucchero ware: H. 4 1/16 in. (10.31 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fletcher Fund, 1924. #24.97.21a,b   © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Detail of Terracotta Vase in the Shape of a Cockerel, showing the Etruscan alphabet. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Terracotta inscribed Alabastron (perfume vase), ca. 600 B.C. Terracotta: H. 5 5/16 in. (13.5 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fletcher Fund, 1926.  #26.60.94

Gold votive bracelet, ca. 675  B.C.-650 B.C. One of Pair, likely found in Palestrina,Italy, Galeassi Tomb.  Gold -  granulation, embossed, stamped: Length: 18.50 centimetres (excl. head and clasp); Weight: 419 grammes; Width: 5.60 centimetres.British Museum. #1872,0604.699 and #1872.6-4.700. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Detail of Gold votive bracelet, ca. 675  B.C.-650 B.C., showing designs of a "Master of Animals" flanked by lions  and three women, each grasping a tree-like plant

"Tomb of the Leopards," detail of banqueting scene, Tarquinia, Italy. University of Michigan Art Images for College Teaching. #ETR 108.  

Etruscan Statue (Modern name - "Ombra della sera" or "Shadow of the Evening"), 3rd century B.C. Bronze: 57.5 cm (about 22.6 inches) Guarnacci Museum of Volterra https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Ombra_della_Sera_Volterra.jpg

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2018) Alberto Giacometti's The Chariot, 1950. Bronze on wood base: 65 3/4 x 27 3/16 x 27 3/16 inches (167x 69 x 69 cm) 

Made in the Americas:The New World Discovers Asia at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

                                                                                             

Made in the Americas: The New World Discovers Asia

Museum of Fine Arts Boston
August 18, 2015–February 15, 2016

Winterthur Museum

 March 26, 2016–January 8, 2017

Reviewed by Ed Voves                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Made in the Americas: The New World Discovers Asia is an innovative exhibition at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. This exhibit is both colorful in presentation and fascinating in its content, but "unconventional" is an even more descriptive assessment.

Made in the Americas examines the visual arts and artisan crafts of the colonial era in the New World. The overarching theme, however, differs from the accustomed way of showing how European culture was transplanted to the recently discovered lands of the Americas. 

The second part of the exhibit title - The New World Discovers Asia - supplies a key interpretive insight. The Boston art display examines the influence of long-distance trading by Western seafarers with Asia. The luxury goods brought back aboard their storm-lashed ships helped transform the way of life in the Spanish dominions of Mexico and Peru and the thirteen British colonies destined to form the United States in 1776.

Asian imports were embraced by the ruling elites of Europe's colonies in the Americas. One of the earliest works of art on view is a Chinese porcelain plate which appears as the introductory image of this review. In an amazing amalgam of Europe's feudal heraldry and Oriental aesthetics, the plate bears the coat of arms of the viceroy of Peru, García Hurtado de Mendoza (1535-1609). 

Such precious objects also exerted a powerful influence by the peoples they ruled. The social transformation occurred in ways that were not initially apparent.

John Singleton Copley's portrait of Nicholas Boylston (1716-1771) shows exactly the sort of "merchant prince" who profited by the trade with Asia. Boylston’s import company, Green and Boylston, played a key role in clothing wealthy Bostonians with the rich textiles which he himself wore when painted by Copley. Boylston's firm also specialized in importing tea to the increasingly self-reliant British colonies.

John Singleton Copley, Nicholas Boylston, 1769 

Politically conservative, Boylston refused to support the boycott of British goods during the tense years before the American Revolution. He was denounced by Patriot leader, Samuel Adams, as one of the "enemies of their country." Boylston's death in 1771 spared him from witnessing the destruction of his refined, gentlemanly way of life when Paul Revere called the Minutemen of Massachusetts to arms against the British in 1775.

The growing appetite for Asia's furniture and furnishings, spices and ceramics, fed the New World's desire for more.  As demand rose, so too did the desire to have these goods at prices that people less affluent than Boylston could afford.

Unknown Artist, Portable Writing Desk, c. 1684

The populations of the British and Spanish colonies took matters into their own hands. They started marking versions of these exotic Asian imports for themselves. And once they succeeded in achieving a growing measure of economic self-sufficiency, the next step was to grasp after political independence.

The majority of the art treasures on view in the Boston exhibit exemplify this "can-do" American spirit. To maintain the Oriental allure of products made in the Americas, however, touches of faux Asian design known as chinoiserie were added. Motifs "in the Chinese taste" appeared on every imaginable object from fabrics and wall-paper to Queen Anne-style cabinets.

John Pimm, Japanned High Chest, 1730-1739

The great Boston furniture maker, John Pimm, created an exquisite high chest, during the 1730's, from black walnut and soft maple. It was then "japanned" with coats of a special varnish to make the surface look like Asian lacquer had been applied to it, with gilded Oriental figures to complete the illusion.

Unknown Artists (Mexico), Desk and Bookcase, Mid-18th Century

Another standout piece from the exhibition, a spectacular desk and bookcase from the mid-1700's which opens up to reveal a mythic realm in red and gold, was "Americas-made." It was created by Mexican craftsmen, rather than Chinese, as one would initially suspect.

This Asian influence of Asia on the creative energies of colonial America came about as a result of one of the most fantastic maritime ventures of world history. These were the voyages of ships known as the Manila Galleons. 

The story begins with the epic expedition by a Spanish ship, the San Pedro, in 1565. That year, an Augustinian monk named Fray Andrés de Urdaneta (1498-1568) guided the San Pedro on a perilous voyage to discover a trade route from the Spanish colony of the Philippines to Mexico. 

Urdaneta was a Basque sailor who had taken holy orders after surviving a disastrous earlier expedition. When King Philip II recalled Urdaneta to duty, the Basque sailor-monk put his experience to great use. 
                                                                  
The San Pedro sailed from Cebu Island in the Philippines on June 1, 1565, carrying a cargo of precious cinnamon. Urdaneta, on board as navigator, boldly sailed into the uncharted waters of the North Pacific rather than set the vessel's course by the Equator to reach South America. Urdaneta followed a hunch that there were favorable trade winds in the North Pacific, just as there were in the North Atlantic. Urdaneta was correct and though most of the crew died on the 6,000 mile voyage across the Pacific, the San Pedro made landfall near Acapulco on October 8, 1565.

For nearly 250 years, the Manila galleons followed "Urdaneta's route" bringing spices, textiles and the coveted blue and white glazed porcelain that would be known as "China" in the West. To pay for these high-profile goods, the Manila galleons brought tons of silver to Asia, nearly a third of the vast haul mined by the Spanish during the colonial era in Mexico and modern-day Bolivia. This cargo went into the coffers of the Ming and Manchu emperors of China and the Samurai rulers of Japan. The bartered Asian goods were then transported by the Manila galleons to Acapulco for reshipment to Spain.

Two centuries and a half centuries later, the annual oceanic trek was still going strong. Then, in 1815, the frigate San Fernando de Magallanes sailed into Acapulco to find that Mexico had rebelled against the Spanish crown. The age of the Manila Galleon came to an abrupt end.

Gallery view showing the byōbu, Southern Barbarians Come to Trade, c. 1600

In the long years between the two voyages, the Asian imports brought back by the Manila galleons created a cultural ripple effect that reached many distant shores. 

One of the first - and most remarkable - displays in the Boston exhibit directly evokes the Manila Galleon trade. Huge folding screens - byōbu ­- were brought from Japan to Mexico. Byōbu was transliterated as biombo in Spanish. The folding screens became so identified with the Hispanic­-speaking world that in Germany they were known as Spanische wand or Spanish walls.

Not only were biombos supremely practical in creating private space but they offered ample scope for a wide range of decorative schemes. Many were painted with New World genre scenes, Native-American weddings or feast day celebrations.

Unknown Artist, Biombo with Scenes of the Conquest of Mexico, Late 17th century 

The biombo on view in the Boston exhibit, however, depicts various episodes of the conquest of Mexico by Hernan Cortes in 1519. It is a vast cinemascope affair, densely packed with dramatic incident. Appearing on the reverse side is a panorama of the rebuilt Mexico City at peace under the benign rule of the Spanish viceroys.

Like the 1950's movie epics, the biombo reveals more of the way that the story of Cortes was viewed when it was created in the 1600's than about the actual events a century and a half before. A scene showing armored-clad Spanish conquistadores plunging to their doom in the lake surrounding Mexico City evokes the human-cost of this horrific siege. But otherwise there is little indication of the staggering death toll that marked the overthrow of the Aztec Empire.

This romanticized view of the conquest of Mexico was no doubt influenced by the way that the Japanese Kano artists utilized the sweeping expanse of the byōbu screen to rework scenes from Japan's mythology or history. 

Set against a golden backdrop, the byōbu on view in the MFA exhibit is a magnificent example of these cherished works. This byōbu depicts the moment when European seafarers - Nanbanjin or "southern barbarians" - first reached Japan in the 1540's. It is a marvelous work of art, a true masterpiece, but it never was intended to represent the actual event, fraught with suspicion and duplicity. 

Another work of art related to the Manila Galleon trade testifies to the interaction of Asian and American craftsmen and the burgeoning self-expression among these "colonials."

Ivory carving ranked high among the accomplishments of artists in the Philippines. Stunning pieces of this delicate work were exported to Spain's colonies in the Americas. Often, the heads and hands of small figures were carved in ivory in the Philippines and then combined with wooden bodies carved in the New World. 

Unknown Artists (Philippines and Ecuador), Nativity Set, 18th Century

This heart-warming Nativity set from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York is a beautiful example of this collaborative effort.

There are so many incredible works of art in Made in the Americas: The New World Discovers Asia that it is bewildering to study them in a single museum visit. It is a pleasure to note that when the exhibit concludes in Boston, it will be revived at the Winterthur Museum, near Wilmington, Delaware. The exhibit will be on view at Winterthur from March 26, 2016 to January 8, 2017.

For a final reflection, I have chosen an object to appreciate that outwardly is of little significance. Yet, it has a symbolical importance for the age of the Manila galleons and chinoiserie - and for the era that came afterward. 

This is a blue-and-white tea bowl of the kind made at Puebla in Mexico and ceramic workshops throughout Europe. This reproduction of the real thing from China was made by a South Carolina potter, John Bartlam, and decorated in the finest chinoiserie style.

John Bartlam, Tea Bowl, 1765-1770

Bartlam's tea bowl was created around the time that tea importer Nicholas Boylston was denounced by Samuel Adams. One can only wonder what American colonials poured into Bartlam's china cups and bowls after the Boston Tea Party. Did they drink Oswego Tea, an all-American substitute?

Oswego Tea was an herbal concoction brewed by Native Americans and then made popular by a Philadelphia Quaker botanist with a similar sounding name to the South Carolina potter, John Bartram. While traveling in western New York as part of a delegation to meet with the chiefs of the Iroquois Confederacy in 1743, Bartram observed the Iroquois brewing a drink from the leaves of the Monarda didyma (Bee Balm) plant which he called Oswego Tea. 

Thousands of Bartram's fellow colonials borrowed his recipe in 1773. This was the year that the American colonies rejected King George III's tax on tea and dumped the East India Company's shipment from China into Boston Harbor. Oswego Tea became the beverage of choice of American sons and daughters of Liberty.

This exquisite little tea bowl, then, is a fitting symbol of the social transformation that enabled people in the Americas to adapt well-traveled objects from Asia to suit their rising communities. In the process, the people in the American colonies created a self-reliant, democratic way of life.

Chinoiserie tea bowls and representative democracy were by-products of the cultural transformation so brilliantly explored in The New World Discovers Asia at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. These too were "made in the Americas." 

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved 
Images courtesy of the  Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

Introductory Image:                                                                                               Unknown Artist, Plate with the arms of García Hurtado de Mendoza y Manrique and Teresa de Castro y de la Cueva, 1588-1593. Porcelain with underglaze blue decoration. Diameter - 8 inches. Thomas Lurie Collection. Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 

John Singleton Copley (American, 1735-1815),  Nicholas Boylston, about 1769. Oil on canvas:  127.32 x 101.6 cm (50 1/8 x 40 in.) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Bequest of David P. Kimball, #23.504 Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 

Unknown Artist, Portable Writing Desk, c.1684. Wood, varniz de pasto, silver fittings. On loan from The Hispanic Society of America, New York, NY. Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

John Pimm (American, died 1773) Japanned High Chest, 1730-1739. Soft maple, black walnut, white pine, mahogany, brass: 218.44 cm x 104.14 cm x 62.23 cm. (86 in. x 41 in. x 24.5 in.) Winterthur Museum, Gift of Henry Francis du Pont. Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Unknown Artists from Puebla de los Angeles, Mexico. Desk and Bookcase, mid-18th century. Inlaid and incised woods and painted bone, maque, and gold and polychrome paint: 87 in. x 41 in. x 261/2 in. Ann and Gordon Getty Collection, Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, photograph. Gallery view showing the byōbu, Southern Barbarians Come to Trade, attributed to Kano Naizen (Japanese, 1570–1616) c. 1600. Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Unknown Artist, Biombo with Scenes of the Conquest of Mexico / View of the City of Mexico, Late 17th.  Folding screen with ten oil-on-canvas panels, overall: 210 x 560 cm, (82 11/16 x 220 1/2 in.) Vera da Costa Autrey Collection, Mexico City. Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Unknown Artists (Possibly Philippines and Ecuador), Nativity Set, 18th century or later. Wood, polychromed and gilded; ivory touched up with polychromy. Dimensions: Figure of Mary  - H. 7 3/4 in. (19.7 cm.); Figure of Infant Jesus -  L. 2 3/4 in. (7 cm); Figure of Joseph - H. 8 1/2 in. (21.6 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art,  Gift of Loretta Hines Howard, 1964. #s: 64.164.172, 64.164.174, 64.164.173 Photograph © Metropolitan Museum of  Art, NYC

John Bartlam (American, 1735/36-1781) Tea Bowl, 1765 - 1770 . Soft-paste porcelain, diameter 3 1/8 inches. Anonymous loan. Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston