Yixing stoneware customised for the West: An analysis of a rare Yixing zisha stoneware mustard pot in the Anders Collection, The Netherlands

Yixing stoneware is an intricate material culture originating from the Yixing area in Jiangsu province, southeast China. Thanks to its unique clay resources and specialised shaping techniques, Yixing stoneware vessels can be both porous and watertight. As a result, the Chinese have regarded Yixing stoneware as the ideal material for making teapots. From the seventeenth century onwards, Yixing stoneware was introduced to Europe through private trade conducted by European merchants, particularly the Dutch. Meanwhile, scholarship on the trading patterns of Yixing stoneware has underscored the crucial roles played by intermediaries, including Chinese middlemen and shops that engaged in business with Europeans near the trading posts, in sourcing Yixing stoneware. This article presents an exceptionally rare example of a Yixing stoneware mustard pot from the Anders Collection, now housed in the Groninger Museum. Unlike other more common types of exported Yixing stoneware—predominantly teapots—the mustard pot represented an entirely unfamiliar European shape to Yixing potters. Hence, this unique mustard pot indicates that the ability to customise Yixing stoneware existed as early as the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, suggesting a possible direct connection between European traders and Yixing potters. Based on the analysis of a single object, this research does not aim to draw a conclusive statement. Instead, by analysing the Groninger mustard pot, this paper seeks to broaden the scope of research on the export of Yixing stoneware and pave the way for future studies.