Espadarte (1558): Evidence of Early Portuguese Trade in Porcelain via Africa

The maritime voyages of exploration in the Atlantic Ocean at the end of the 15th century, in search of a route to what were known as the Spice Islands (present-day Indonesia), led the Portuguese down the western coast of Africa, around the Cape of Good Hope, and across the Indian Ocean to India. These voyages opened long-distance sea trade routes between Europe and Asia via Africa. After trading posts were secured at Hormuz in 1507, Goa in 1509, and Malacca in 1511, Chinese porcelain began to arrive regularly in Portugal. Direct Portuguese trade relations with China began in 1513, during the reign of the emperor Zhengde (1506–21) of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), after the arrival of the Portuguese explorer Jorge Álvares on the island of Tunmen, off Canton (Guangzhou). Within decades, Lisbon, the ultimate destination of the trade ships of the India route (the carreira da India), became the most important commercial marketplace in Renaissance Europe for porcelain and other Asian luxury goods. Made from a material unknown in the West at the time, porcelain was greatly valued for its rarity, translucence, and durability. Porcelain was an expensive luxury good afforded only by individuals of the highest levels of society, which conveyed not only their power but also their wonder of the wider world. The Portuguese traders of the India route soon realized that porcelain, which was not subject to a royal monopoly, offered a distinct advantage that other Asian goods could not. Impermeable, easy to pack and store, and heavy in weight, it was a perfect ballast for placing in the hold of ships to stabilize them for the long, dangerous sea voyages. Still, circumventing the massive continent of Africa posed an immense challenge. At least fifteen India-route ships are known to have wrecked off the southern African coast between 1551 and 1647 (Esterhuizen, 2001, p. 111). 

The Portuguese explorer and navigator Vasco da Gama (1469–1524) set sail from Lisbon to India in 1497, rounding the Cape of Good Hope and sailing up the coast to the Island of Mozambique in February of the following year. The Island of Mozambique, a small coral island situated about a kilometre from the mainland coast at the mouth of Mossuril Bay, was a thriving port city inhabited by Swahili-speaking Muslims. By the time the Portuguese arrived, a series of islands and coastal port cities on the eastern African coast (now known as the Swahili coast, stretching over 2,500 kilometres from Somalia to Mozambique) were already part of international long-distance maritime trading networks established by local elites and foreign merchants. These networks, centred around the Indian Ocean, were based on the seasonal shifting of the monsoon winds that carried ships along the coastlines of eastern Africa to the Red Sea and Persian Gulf (Zhao, 2012, pp. 48–49). On the Island of Mozambique, Portuguese settlers built a small fort in 1507, then later replaced it in 1545 with a large fortress, named Saint Sebastian, which was finally completed in 1583. This island, now a UNESCO World Heritage site, became the capital of Portuguese East Africa (Fig. 1) and a key port city for Portuguese ships that plied regularly between Goa and Lisbon. Although the importance of the Island of Mozambique grew steadily as a fortified port city where the India-route ships could be repaired and serviced, the entrance to the anchorage was difficult and dangerous.

Fig. 1 Map of Africa, from the Cape of Good Hope to the equinoctial line, from the Universal Atlas. The Portuguese presence in southern Africa is represented by flags bearing the cross of Christ and by shields with the Portuguese coat of arms. 
By Fernão Vaz Dourado (c. 1520–c. 1580); Goa, 1571 
Parchment; 40.5 x 53 cm 
Direcção-Geral de Arquivos, Portugal 

Fig. 2 Dishes, plates, saucers, bowls, and cups
China, Jingdezhen; Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Jiajing reign (1522–66)
Recovered from the shipwreck Espadarte (1558)
Blue-and-white porcelain
Photo © Anya Bartels-Suermondt 

Material evidence of the early Portuguese trade in porcelain via Africa is provided by a Portuguese carrack (nau), recently identified as the Espadarte, which wrecked in May 1558, directly in front of the fort Saint Sebastian. Portuguese textual sources reveal that on its homeward journey to Lisbon, the Espadarte broke a mast at the Cape of Good Hope and was forced to go back to the Island of Mozambique, where it was lost (Lisuarte de Abreu, 1558, p. 48). Although the wreck site of the Espadarte, discovered in May 2001, had been looted in the 1990s by treasure hunters and sport divers, the excavations show that the nau was carrying a full load of cargo, consisting of: gold; spices (pepper, nutmeg, and mace); Martaban storage jars filled with carnelian, seeds, and cowrie shells; and porcelain of the late Ming dynasty.

The Espadarte sank just one year after the Portuguese had established a permanent trading post in Macao in 1557 at the mouth of the Pearl river on the southern coast of China. Thus, the importance of the Espadarte shipwreck lies in the fact that it is, so far, the earliest homeward-bound Portuguese ship of the India route discovered with a cargo of porcelain. The porcelain recovered is of significant archaeological, historical, and art historical importance for both Portugal and the Republic of Mozambique. Moreover, it is one of the most important collections of dated Ming porcelain found thus far on the continent of Africa.

After about eighty tonnes of ballast stones were removed from the wreck site in 2001, almost 1,000 intact or semi-intact porcelain objects and a large quantity of shards were recovered (Fig. 2). The most important find from the shipwreck, made almost fifteen months into the excavation, is a saucer decorated with underglaze cobalt-blue, featuring a white hare at the centre. Its base bears a four-character mark within a double ring, reading ‘made in the guichou year’ (guichou nian zao), corresponding to 1553 in the cyclical calendar (Figs 3a–b). This saucer, alongside a comparative analysis of the other recovered porcelains, allows researchers to securely date the porcelain cargo to the Jiajing reign (1522–66) of the Ming dynasty.

Figs 3a–b Dish bearing a four-character mark on its base, ‘made in the guichou year’ (guichou nian zao), corresponding to 1553
China, Jingdezhen; Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Jiajing reign (1522–66) 
Recovered from the shipwreck Espadarte (1558)
Blue-and-white porcelain; diameter 14.8 cm
Photo © Manuel Gomes da Costa

The Espadarte porcelain, now mostly housed at the Maritime Museum on the Island of Mozambique, consists mainly of dishes, saucers, plates, bowls of medium and small size, and cups produced for export at private kilns in Jingdezhen, the largest and most important kiln complex in China, situated in Jiangxi province. The majority is decorated with underglaze cobalt-blue (hereafter referred to as blue-and-white) featuring motifs of mythical animals (mostly qilins but also dragons, Buddhist lions, and flying horses), animals (tigers, elephants, and buffaloes), birds (mostly cranes), crabs, flowers, and scenes with figures. It also includes a white-glazed ewer, a few variously shaped covered boxes (Fig. 4), and a small number of bowls and cups (some with anhua—secret or hidden—decoration, others with traces of red and green overglaze enamel decoration). Most of the porcelain, ranging from high to rather low quality, bears commendation marks. Only a few pieces bear Jiajing reign marks. 

While there are two other earlier Portuguese ships that sank off the eastern coast of southern Africa on their homeward journeys, the São João and São Bento, their actual wreck sites have never been found. The São João was wrecked in 1552, and her sister ship, the São Bento, sank two years later, in 1554. Nearly 30,000 shards have washed onto beaches near Port Edward and near Msikaba, where the São João and the São Bento respectively are believed to have wrecked (Esterhuizen, 2001, p. 111). The São Bento sank the same year that China reestablished commercial relations with the Portuguese after being banned in 1521. The porcelain cargoes of the São João and São Bento, like that of the Espadarte, consisted predominantly of export blue-and-white porcelain from Jingdezhen. The repetitive forms and decorative motifs seen on these shards suggest that the Portuguese traders acquired what was readily available for trade at the time (Canepa, 2016, pp. 127 and 129). Consequently, it is not surprising that some of the Espadarte blue-and-white porcelain is similar to the São Bento porcelain shards collected off Msikaba. These include small bowls decorated with floral medallions interspersed by ruyi clouds. Their bases bear a four-character mark, ‘fine vessel from the rich and honourable’ (fu gui jia qi) (Fig. 5). There appears to be only one published fragment of a São Bento bowl of this type that bears a four-character Jiajing reign mark (Canepa, 2016, p. 128, figs III.3a–b).

Fig. 4 Ewer with a box and cover 
China, Jingdezhen; Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Jiajing reign (1522–66)
Recovered from the shipwreck Espadarte (1558)
White-glazed porcelain; ewer height 13.2 cm; box and cover height (with lid) 5.6 cm, length 12.2 cm, width 9.8 cm 
Photo © Manuel Gomes da Costa

In China, further evidence of early Portuguese porcelain trade of types recovered from the Espadarte is provided by shards excavated at the Huawanping site located on Shangchuan island in Guangdong province, a clandestine trading post frequented by Chinese junk traders. Here, until at least 1553, the Portuguese used temporary shacks and tents to store and display their goods (Canepa, 2016, p. 27). These include fragments of blue-and-white dishes similar to those from the Espadarte with bracket-lobed rims decorated at the centre with Buddhist lions playing with a brocaded ball and bearing a four-character mark, ‘May infinite good fortune surround you’ (wan fu you tong), on their base (Fig. 6).

More recent archaeological excavations in China have yielded material evidence that relates to the early Portuguese trade in porcelain via Africa. For the first time, a close examination of porcelain shards of the Jiajing reign found during excavations in Jingdezhen enables us to identify some private kilns where porcelains, similar to those carried on the Espadarte, were fired. Stratified excavations at the Luomaqiao kiln—an important producer of high-quality porcelain during the Ming dynasty, located south of the imperial kilns in Zhushan (Weng, 2022, p. 26)—have unearthed shards that relate closely to some Espadarte blue-and-white pieces. For instance, dishes decorated with Buddhist lions playing with a brocaded ball, like the example in Figure 6, are similar to a fragment excavated at this kiln site. From the Luomaqiao kiln, there are also small cups decorated with a simple design of one or two birds perched on opposing branches that are similar to 149 cups found at the wreck site of the Espadarte (Fig. 7). Interestingly, some of the lower-quality blue-and-white pieces from the Espadarte also closely resemble porcelain of the Jiajing reign excavated at the kiln at Leping, one of a small number of private kilns located further south in Jiangxi province that produced for domestic and export markets in the mid- and late Ming dynasty (Chen, 1973, pp. 49 and 51). Thus, it seems possible that at least a small quantity of the low-quality porcelain carried by the Espadarte may have been produced at this kiln.

Fig. 5 Bowl 
China, Jingdezhen; Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Jiajing reign (1522–66) 
Recovered from the shipwreck Espadarte (1558) 
Blue-and-white porcelain; height 6.4 cm, rim diameter 12.2 cm 
Photo © Manuel Gomes da Costa

Fig. 6 Dish 
China, Jingdezhen; Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Jiajing reign (1522–66)
Recovered from the shipwreck Espadarte (1558)
Blue-and-white porcelain; diameter: 21.3 cm
Photo © Manuel Gomes da Costa

By the middle of the 16th century, at the time the Espadarte sank, porcelain was already an integral part of Portuguese royal courtly life in Lisbon, and it had become customary to use it as tableware. Members of the nobility also enjoyed the novelty of owning and eating from porcelain during formal occasions, and by the late 1560s, porcelain was used as tableware in the households of high-ranking officials who returned to Portugal after serving the Crown in Asia (Canepa, 2016, pp. 131–33).

Examining both the extant porcelain pieces and material yielded from archaeological sites across Portugal offers a glimpse on the various types of porcelain of this period that safely arrived at their final destination. In Lisbon, blue-and-white porcelains decorated with similar motifs to the Espadarte pieces can be found at palaces and convents, where they had ornamental and/or practical uses. A particularly compelling example is the porcelain incorporated as architectural features in the pyramidal ceiling of a small drawing room in the Santos Palace (the present-day French Embassy), known as Casa das Porcelanas (Fig. 8). These include three dishes showing a pair of Buddhist lions playing with a ball (Déléry and Tsao, 2021, pp. 110, 148–49), which compare to the Espadarte example in Figure 6. Several of the Santos Palace plates are decorated with a rim border of flowers, fruits, and auspicious motifs also seen in many Espadarte plates (Fig. 9). The Santos Palace porcelain was collected by the king Manuel I (r. 1495–1521) and his successors, as well as by members of the Lencastre family, who later owned the palace. Don José Luis de Lencastre, who lived in the palace from 1664 to 1687, had this ceiling constructed and fitted with porcelain almost exactly as it is today. Excavations at another palace in Lisbon, Palácio dos Condes de Penafiel, include a few shards that formed part of deep dishes and plates from the Jiajing reign, similar to types found in the Espadarte. Curiously, other related shards have been found at the Aljube prison in Lisbon (Henriques, 2012, p. 921).

Fig. 7 Cups 
China, Jingdezhen; Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Jiajing reign (1522–66) 
Recovered from the shipwreck Espadarte (1558)
Blue-and-white porcelain; height: 3.4 cm, diameter 5.5–6.7 cm 
Photo © Manuel Gomes da Costa

Fig. 8 The pyramid-shaped ceiling of the small drawing room, known as Casa das Porcelanas, at the Santos Palace (present-day French Embassy), Lisbon
Photo © The French embassy in Portugal—MAEDI 

At the female convent of Carmo, partially destroyed during the earthquake of 1755 and located in the Chiado neighbourhood of Lisbon, archaeologists have unearthed shards of blue-and-white bowls and plates showing similar side and border motifs to the examples from the Espadarte, illustrated in Figures 5 and 9, respectively. These porcelains, which most likely were used as tableware, reflect the high social status and wealth of some of the nuns who lived in the convent.

About 150 kilometres east of Lisbon at the ducal palace of the house of Bragança, Vila Viçosa, an inventory written in 1563 after the death of Teodósio I, the fifth duke of Bragança (1507?–63), attests to the appreciation and uses of porcelain by the nobility at the time. Teodósio led the wealthiest and most powerful noble family in Portugal. Among approximately 350 pieces of porcelain, mostly tableware, are listed ‘forty-nine small porcelain dishes that have a crab in the middle’ (Canepa, 2016, p. 132). These may have been similar to the fifteen blue-and-white saucers and a dish with an everted rim decorated with a crab at the centre and finely incised anhua-scroll decoration that were recovered from the Espadarte, which had sank just five years earlier (Fig. 10). Such dishes may have been placed—alongside ceramic, glass, crystal, and alabaster objects—among the contents of the ‘house of glass and porcelain’ (casa de vidros e porcelanas), a part of the Duchess’s dressing rooms (guardaroba) that served as a private space mainly reserved for women (Canepa, 2016, p. 132).

Fig. 9 Plate 
China, Jingdezhen; Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Jiajing reign (1522–66) 
Recovered from the shipwreck Espadarte (1558)
Blue-and-white porcelain; diameter: 19.6 cm 
Photo © Manuel Gomes da Costa

Fig. 10 Saucer with anhua decoration 
China, Jingdezhen; Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Jiajing reign (1522–66) 
Recovered from the shipwreck Espadarte (1558) 
Blue-and-white porcelain; diameter: 14.5 cm 
Photo © Manuel Gomes da Costa

Further archaeological sites in Portugal have shown that blue-and-white pieces of the same distinctive type carried by the Espadarte circulated to the southern region of the Algarve. A rim fragment of a petal-moulded saucer with a border of alternating florets and insects within petal panels, identical to decoration seen on a few Espadarte saucers (Fig. 11), was excavated in the historical centre of Lagos, an important port city since the time of Henry (1394–1460), the third son of the king John I (r. 1385–1433). Other finds in the Algarve are from the female convent Bernardas in Tavira (Queiroz and Manteigas, 2008, p. 225). These include a fragment of a blue-and-white dish decorated with a border of pendant foliate scrolls and a medallion enclosing a flying horse on the underside, which relates closely to that of a large dish recovered from the Espadarte bearing a four-character mark, ‘eternal protection and long-lasting spring’ (yong bao chang chun), on its base (Fig. 12).

The underwater porcelain finds on the eastern African coast from the Espadarte shipwreck offer crucial evidence to understanding the vast Portuguese maritime-trade network that carried Chinese porcelain and other Asian luxury goods beginning in the early decades of the 16th century. At this time, when maritime voyages were unpredictable and often treacherous, Portuguese navigators sailed around nearly three-quarters of the immense continent of Africa to arrive at Goa, which was a perilous journey taking more than a year. Some of the homeward voyages, like that of the Espadarte, ended tragically, but through the clues that this shipwreck left behind it is possible to trace the full story of the Chinese porcelain: from its production in specific kilns in Jiangxi province, to the trading posts used by the Portuguese off the southern coast of China, to Portuguese shipwrecks off the coast of southern Africa, and finally to the palaces, convents, and other historic sites of Portugal.

Fig. 11 Saucer 
China, Jingdezhen; Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Jiajing reign (1522–66) 
Recovered from the shipwreck Espadarte (1558) 
Blue-and-white porcelain; diameter: 14.7 cm 
Photo © Manuel Gomes da Costa

Fig. 12 Fragment of a dish bearing a four-character mark on its base: ‘eternal protection and long-lasting spring’
(yong bao chang chun) 
China, Jingdezhen; Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Jiajing reign (1522–66) 
Recovered from the shipwreck Espadarte (1558) 
Blue-and-white porcelain
Photo © Manuel Gomes da Costa

The authors are grateful to Alejandro Mirabal, former Marine Archaeologist Arqueonautas Worldwide SA; José Pedro Henriques; Huang Wei, PhD candidate of Tsinghua University, Beijing, and founder of Jingdezhen Dongjiao Center; Miguel Serra, Palimpsesto; and Dr Yanjun Weng, Director of the Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Institute, for providing images and information on excavated Jiajing-reign porcelain in China and Portugal.

Teresa Canepa is an independent researcher and lecturer in Chinese and Japanese export art and currently a council member of the Oriental Ceramic Society in London and coeditor of the Society’s Newsletter. She completed her PhD in art history at Leiden University, The Netherlands, and has published a number of books and articles and has lectured widely.

Beth Gardiner is a member of the council of the Oriental Ceramic Society in London and co-editor of the Society’s Newsletter. She received her master’s degree in art history from Sotheby’s Institute, London.

Selected bibliography

Teresa Canepa, Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer: China and Japan and Their Trade with Western Europe and the New World, 1500–1644, London, 2016.

Chen Boquan, ‘Jiangxi Leping Mingdai qinghua yaozhi diocha’ [Investigations of Ming Blue-and-White Kiln Sites in Leping, Jiangxi], Wenwu [Cultural Relics], no. 3 (1973): 46–51.

Comissão nacional para as comemorações dos descobrimentos portugueses, ed., Livro de Lisuarte de Abreu (1558–1565), Lisbon, 1992.

Claire Déléry and Huei-Chung Tsao, eds, Chinese Porcelains of the Santos Palace, Paris, 2021.

L. Valerie Esterhuizen, ‘History Written in Porcelain Sherds: The São João and the São Bento, Two 16th Century Portuguese Shipwrecks’, Taoci, no. 2 (December 2001): 111–16.

José Pedro Vintém Henriques, ‘Do Oriente para Ocidente: Contributo para o conhecimento da porcelana Chinesa nos quotidianos de época moderna’, Velhos e Novos Mundos: Estudos de Arqueologia Moderna [Old and New Worlds: Studies on Early Modern Archaeology] 2 (2012): 919–32.

Huang Wei, ‘Investigation on Huawanping Site on Shangchuan Island, Taishan County, Guangdong Province and Related Issues’, MA thesis, Peking University, 2006.

Jorge Queiroz and Rita Manteigas, eds, Tavira, Patrimónios do mar, Tavira, 2008.

Yanjun Weng, ‘The Excavation of Luomaqiao Kiln Site in Jingdezhen’, Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter, no. 30 (May 2022): 26–32.

Bing Zhao, ‘Global Trade and Swahili Cosmopolitan Material Culture: Chinese-Style Ceramic Shards from Sanje ya Kati and Songo Mnara (Kilwa, Tanzania)’, Journal of World History 23, no. 1 (2012): 41–85.

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