Dish with warrior

The dramatic warrior with two axes depicted in the center of this plate illustrates the addition of figures based on popular plays and novels to the repertory of kraak ware, a type of ceramic that was often exported to Europe. This warrior, who cannot be precisely identified, holds axe in his lowered right hand, with a second one in his belt, and may be allusion to Li Gui (also known as the Black Whirlwind), one of the heroes of the classic Ming novel The Water Margin (Shui Hu Zhuan). The composite groupings of flowers on the panel, on the other hand, reflect the impact of contemporaneous Turkish Iznik wares on the evolution of kraak ware in the early seventeenth century while some of the single blossoms represent tulips, a flower that was first cultivated in Turkey, and eventually spread to Holland as part of the development of global trade, including Chinese porcelains, in the late sixteenth and seventeenth century.