NINETEENTH CENTURY PORCELAINS
_Chia Ch’ing_ [chch 2] (1796–1820)
There is little to distinguish the porcelain of this reign from that of
Ch’ien Lung. The old traditions were followed and the high standard of
technical skill was maintained to a great extent, though in the absence
of original ideas the natural tendency was towards a gradual decline.
The blue and white is a mere echo of the Ch’ien Lung blue and white, as
is shown by a square jar in the Franks Collection, which bears the date
corresponding to 1819. Another dated specimen in the same collection
is a little bowl with design of the “Eight Ambassadors of the Tribes
of Man” mounted on strange beasts, painted in thin garish blue under a
bubbly glaze. There are well-finished monochromes of the Ch’ien Lung
type, conspicuous among which is an intense brick red (derived from
iron), which has all the depth and solidity of a glaze. The enamelled
wares are in no way inferior to their late Ch’ien Lung models, and the
medallion bowls with engraved enamel grounds are particularly choice.
Plate 132, a richly decorated vase belonging to the Lady Wantage,
illustrates a type common to both periods. The design of ladies of the
harem in an Imperial pleasure ground is carefully painted in mixed
colours and enclosed by rich borders of dark ruby pink enamel, brocaded
with polychrome floral scrolls. Another vase in the same collection
(marked Chia Ch’ing) has a movable inner lining and pierced outer shell
richly enamelled in the same style. The blue green enamel of the Ch’ien
Lung porcelain was freely used to finish off the base and mouth of the
vases of this time.
Bushell[470] describes as a speciality of the Chia Ch’ing period, vases
with elaborate scrollwork of various kinds in underglaze blue enhanced
by a richly gilded background; and the mark of this reign will be found
on many of the choicer snuff bottles, including those sumptuous little
vessels with richly carved and pierced outer casing as finely tooled as
Su Chou or Peking lacquer.
We have already seen that rice-grain decoration was effectively used at
this time, and no doubt many specimens of the kindred “lacework” were
also made. In fact in a general classification of Chinese porcelain it
would be almost superfluous to separate the Chia Ch’ing from the Ch’ien
Lung groups.
_Tao Kuang_ [chch 2] (1821–1850)
The reign of Tao Kuang is the last period of which collectors of
Chinese ceramics take any account. It is true that the general
deterioration which was already remarked in the previous reign became
more and more conspicuous towards the middle of the nineteenth century.
It seemed as though the wells of inspiration in China had dried up and
the bankrupt arts continued to exist only by virtue of their past.
Curiously enough the same wave of decadence was felt all the world over
at this period, and if we compare the porcelain of Tao Kuang with the
contemporary English and Continental productions we must confess that
the decadence of China was Augustan beside the early Victorian art.
The Tao Kuang porcelain in the main is saved from utter banality by
the high traditions on which it was grounded and by the innate skill
of the Chinese potters. Indeed there are not a few out of the numerous
specimens of this period in our collections which have a certain
individuality and distinction entitling them to a place beside the
eighteenth-century wares.
But, speaking generally, the porcelain is a weak edition of the Yung
Chêng types. The forms are correct but mechanical, the monochromes
are mere understudies of the fine old colours, and the enamels are of
exaggerated softness and weak in general effect.
There are numerous marked specimens of all varieties in the Franks
Collection. These include a blue and white vase with bronze designs of
ogre heads, etc., in the K’ang Hsi style, but painted in pale, lifeless
grey blue, and a bowl with lotus designs and symbols surrounding four
medallions with the characters _shan kao shui ch’ang_[471] neatly
painted in the same weak blue and signed by Wen Lang-shan in the year
1847. Among the monochromes is a dignified vase of bronze form with
deep turquoise glaze dated 1844, besides coffee brown bowls, full
yellow bowls, vases with curiously bubbled glaze of dark liver red, and
a coral red jar and cover. There is also a large bowl with “tiger skin”
glaze patched with yellow, green, aubergine and white. All of these
pieces are lacking in quality and distinction, though I have seen far
superior specimens of lemon yellow monochrome and tea dust glaze.
The enamelled wares are much more attractive, and many of the rice
bowls are prettily decorated in soft colours. The Peking or medallion
bowls, for instance, are little if anything below the standard of
previous reigns, and in addition to the medallions in engraved enamel
grounds of pink, green, grey, etc., outside, the interior is often
painted in underglaze blue. There are tasteful bowls with white bamboo
designs reserved in a ground of coral red, and there are dishes with
blackthorn boughs with pink blossom in a white ground. The Yung Chêng
style of underglaze blue outlines with washes of thin-transparent
enamels was also affected, but the most characteristic enamelling of
the period is executed in a mixture of transparent and opaque enamels,
a blend of _famille verte_ and _famille rose_. This colouring, soft
and subdued, but often rather sickly in tone, is frequently seen on
bowls and tea wares with Taoist subjects, such as the Eight Immortals,
the fairy attendants of Hsi Wang Mu in boats, or the goddess herself
on a phœnix passing over the sea to the _t’ien t’ang_ or cloud-wrapt
pavilions of Paradise, preceded by a stork with a peach of longevity in
its beak. The sea is usually rendered by a conventional wave pattern
delicately engraved in greenish white, and sometimes the ground of
the design is washed with the same thin, lustrous, greenish white,
which was remarked on a group of porcelains described on page 151.
The porcelain of these bowls has a white, if rather chalky, body and
a greenish white glaze of exaggerated oily sheen, and of the minutely
bubbled, “muslin-like” texture which is common to Japanese porcelains.
But the ordinary Tao Kuang wares are of poor material, greyish in tone
and coarser in grain, with the same peculiarities in the texture of the
glaze in an exaggerated degree.
[Illustration: Plate 131.--Eighteenth Century Painted Porcelain.
Fig. 1.--Plate painted in black and gold, European figures
in a Chinese interior. Yung Chêng period. Diameter 9 inches.
_British Museum._
Fig. 2.--Dish with floral scrolls in _famille rose_
enamels in a ground of black enamel diapered with green foliage
scrolls. Ch’ien Lung period. Diameter 23¼ inches. _Wantage
Collection._]
[Illustration: Plate 132.--Vase painted in mixed enamels, an
Imperial park and a bevy of ladies. _Wantage Collection._
Deep ruby pink borders with coloured floral scrolls and symbols.
Ch’ien Lung mark. About 1790. Height 30 inches.]
A typical example of the fine Tao Kuang rice bowl with Taoist design
in the Franks Collection, delicately painted in mixed colours, which
recall the Ku-yüeh-hsüan ware of the early Ch’ien Lung period, has
the palace mark, _Shên tê t’ang_,[472] in red under the base. A
specimen with this mark in the Hippisley Collection[473] is inscribed
with a poem by the Emperor Tao Kuang, definitely fixing the date of
this hall mark, which is found on choice porcelains made for Imperial
use. It occurs on a vase of fine workmanship in the British Museum,
decorated with polychrome five-clawed dragons in a lavender enamel
ground, of which the base and interior are coated with blue green
enamel; and we have already[474] commented on an interesting dish with
archaic designs in Ming red and green, which is explained in the mark
as an “imitation of the antique made for the _Shên-tê_ Hall.”
It is worthy of note that most of the porcelain with hall and studio
marks in red belong to the nineteenth century, chiefly to the Tao
Kuang period. Several of these marks are figured and explained on
p. 220 (vol. i.), but it may be useful if we describe here a few of
the specimens on which they occur. The hall mark, _Ch’êng tê t’ang_,
appears on a shallow bowl in the Franks Collection painted inside with
a coiled dragon in green and a border of bats in red, while outside
is a landscape carefully painted in mixed colours in a style similar
to Plate 125, Fig. 3. The latter has the Imperial hall mark, _Hsü hua
t’ang_, with addition of the word _tsêng_ (for presentation), and it
has besides an inscription proclaiming that it is the “cup of him who
departed as General and returned as Grand Secretary” (_ch’u chiang ju
hsiang chih pei_). It is painted with a scene in the palace grounds
with the Emperor receiving a military officer.[475] A pretty bowl in
the Franks Collection with rockery, flowering plants, fungus, etc., in
colours has the palace mark, _ssŭ pu t’ang_; and there are two saucer
dishes with Buddhist decoration of palmettes in cruciform arrangement,
and a border of Sanskrit characters painted in underglaze blue with
washes of transparent enamels marked respectively _Ts’ai jun t’ang_,
and _Ts’ai hua t’ang_ (hall of brilliant colours and hall of brilliant
decoration), which are probably synonymous.
A distinctive group of porcelain, which seems to belong to the Tao
Kuang period, consists of small boxes and of vases with landscapes
and similar elaborate ornament deeply carved in the manner of red
lacquer. The surface is usually covered with an opaque green or yellow
monochrome enamel, but occasionally it is left in white biscuit. These
pieces have almost always a maker’s mark, such as Wang Ping-jung, Wang
Tso-t’ing (see vol. i., p. 223), and probably come from one factory.
Bushell[476] also alludes to white unglazed porcelain made at this
time, and recalling the English Parian ware. It is chiefly seen on
small objects for the writing table.
The collector will always be glad to secure specimens of the palace
porcelains of the Tao Kuang period, and of the smaller objects on
which the weakness of the colouring is not noticeable. There are, for
instance, many exquisite snuff bottles with the mark of this reign,
with carved, monochrome and enamelled ornament. On the other hand
quantities of these little objects coarsely manufactured and sketchily
decorated were made at this time, and among them the crude specimens
with a floral spray on one side, a line of verse in grass characters
on the other, and a granulated border coated with opaque yellowish or
bluish green enamel, whose supposed discovery in ancient Egyptian tombs
made a sensation some sixty years ago. It is not difficult to guess how
these objects traded among the Arabs found their way into the tombs
which were in course of excavation, but for a time they were believed
to prove the existence of Chinese porcelain in the second millennium
before Christ.[477]
Three other types of indifferent ware may be mentioned here in passing.
They belong to the middle of the nineteenth century, and in part
at least to the Tao Kuang period. One is painted with a large pink
peony and foliage in a bright green enamel ground; the second has cut
flowers, butterflies and insects in strong rose colours on a celadon
green glaze; and the third has rectangular panels with crowded figure
subjects in red and pink enclosed by a brocade pattern of flowers,
fruit and insects as in the second type. This third class is often
represented by large and rather clumsily shaped vases with two handles
of conventionalised dragon form, and the border patterns are sometimes
backed with gilding; but it also occurs in quite recent manufacture in
tea and toilet services made for the export trade. The porcelain in all
these cases is of a rough, coarse-grained make, and the reader might
have been spared a description of them were it not that in spite of
their inferior quality they are the subject of frequent inquiries.
_Hsien Fêng_ [chch 2] (1851–1861)
In the third year of Hsien Fêng the T’ai p’ing rebels captured Ching-tê
Chên and burnt down the Imperial factory, which was not rebuilt till
1864. The potters themselves were killed or scattered; and, naturally,
marked examples of this reign are scarce. Such, however, as do exist
are of little account, and may be regarded as continuations of the Tao
Kuang manufacture. Bushell[478] mentions vases of good form painted
in soft colours with nine five-clawed dragons on a white background,
which is etched in the paste with scrolled waves, and a dinner service
of bowls, cups and saucer dishes painted in colours with processional
figures of the eighteen Lohan. And in the British Museum there is a
large globular bowl on a high foot painted with green dragon designs
and a bowl with medallions of lanterns and vases separated by lotus
ornament, neither of which are in any way different from the Tao Kuang
wares. No doubt a good deal of porcelain was made at the private
factories even during this troubled period, but the specimens which I
have seen are not worthy of description.
_T’ung Chih_ [chch 2] (1862–1873)
When the T’ai p’ing rebels had been expelled from the province of
Kiangsi by the celebrated viceroy, Li Hung-chang, in 1864, the Imperial
factory was rebuilt on the old lines by the new director, Ts’ai
Chin-ch’ing. In the same year a list of the porcelain forwarded to the
Emperor was drawn up, and it is published in the _Chiang hsi t’ung
chih_[479] immediately after Hsieh Min’s list. It consists mainly of
bowls, wine and tea cups, saucer dishes and plates classified as _yüan
ch’i_ (round ware), and a few vases under the general heading, _cho
ch’i_; and though there is little originality in the designs, lists of
this kind are so rare and so instructive that I have no hesitation in
giving it in full below, following Bushell’s[480] renderings in most
cases.
Actual examples of T’ung Chih porcelain are not inspiring. Those in
the British Museum include a covered bowl with coloured sprays in a
ground of red diaper; a bowl with enamelled sprays on a pale brown
(_tzŭ chin_) glaze; a saucer with dragons etched under a transparent
green glaze, the exterior in unglazed biscuit painted in black; a
cup with red dragons in a ground of black enamel and the cyclical
date 1868; a low, octagonal bowl with the Eight Trigrams in relief
outside, the interior of this and of the preceding specimen as well
being coated with blue green enamel; and a basin enamelled with the
Eight Ambassadors of the Tribes of Man. The most favourable specimen
of the ware in the same collection is a carefully painted wedding bowl
with canary yellow ground and medallions of appropriate symbols, the
peach-and dragon-headed staff of longevity, the double fish symbol
of conjugal felicity, and the group of pencil brush, cake of ink and
_ju-i_ sceptre forming the rebus _pi ting ju i_, “may things be as you
wish.”
LIST OF IMPERIAL PORCELAINS SUPPLIED IN THE THIRD YEAR OF T’UNG
CHIH (1864)
VASES (_cho ch’i_)
1. Quadrangular vases with apricot medallions and two tubular
handles with Chün glaze. [For the shape see Plate 123, and for
the glaze see p. 1.]
2. Vases of the same form with Ko glaze.
3. Quadrangular vases with the Eight Trigrams (_pa kua_),
and Ko glaze. [The form is quadrangular body with round neck and
foot, moulded in relief with the trigrams; for the Ko glaze see
vol. i., p. 71.]
4. Vases in form of jade ewers (_yü hu ch’un_) with _chi
hung_ (or copper red) glaze.
5. Vases of the same form, with blue and white decoration and
raised threads. [Bushell explains that the surface is divided
into patterns or sections by raised rings.]
6. Vases of the same form, with blue and white decoration with
balcony (_lan kan_). [Bushell explains, “garden scenes
enclosed by railings.”]
7. Paper-beater (_chih ch’ui_) vases with the _t’ai
chi_ symbol and the glaze of the Imperial factory decorated
in colours. [The form is the club-shape or _rouleau_; and
the symbol is apparently the _yin-yang_, the Confucian
symbol for the Absolute.]
8. Quadrangular vase with elephant symbol of great peace
(_t’ai ping yu hsiang_, a rebus meaning “augury of great
peace”). [These are apparently square vases with two handles in
form of elephant (_hsiang_) heads.]
ROUND WARES (_yüan ch’i_)
9. Medium-sized bowls with dragons in purple brown (_tzŭ_).
10. Medium-sized bowls with _chi hung_ glaze.
11. Large bowls (_wan_) with Indian lotus (_hsi lien_)
in blue.
12. Five-inch dishes (_p’an_), similarly decorated.
13. Medium-sized bowls with storks and Eight Trigrams (_pa
kua_).
14. Wine cups with narcissus flowers (_shui hsien hua_) in
enamels.
15. Wine cups with spreading rim painted with dragons in red.
16. Dishes (_p’an_) a foot in diameter decorated in blue with a
pair of dragons filling the surface.
17. Soup bowls (_t’ang wan_) with incised dragons under a dark
yellow monochrome glaze. [These, according to Bushell, are
smaller and shallower than rice bowls.]
18. Medium-sized bowls, barrel shaped, with dragons engraved
under a yellow monochrome glaze.
19. Yellow monochrome tea cups.
20. Medium-sized bowls with dragons engraved under a yellow
monochrome glaze.
21. Medium-sized bowls with the three fruits in groups (_pan
tzŭ_[481]) painted in blue. [The fruits are peach, pomegranate
and finger citron.]
22. Soup bowls with expanding rim and dragons incised under
yellow monochrome glaze.
23. Six-inch bowls with a pair of dragons in blue.
24. One-foot dishes painted in blue with silkworm scrolls
(_ts’an wên_) and longevity characters.
25. Tea cups decorated in blue with _mu hsi_ flowers (a
small variety of the _olea fragrans_).
26. Medium-sized bowls with precious lotus in enamel colours.
27. Tea cups with white bamboo on a painted red ground.
28. Six-inch dishes painted in blue with the “three friends”
(_san yu_) and figure subjects. [The three friends in floral
language are the pine, bamboo and prunus. It is also a name
given to the group of Confucius, Buddha, and Lao-tzŭ, who are
often represented examining a picture scroll or standing in
conversation.]
29. Tea dishes (_ch’a p’an_) with a pair of dragons in blue.
[Bushell describes these as “little trays with upright borders,
of oblong, four-lobed, and fluted outline.” They must in fact
have closely resembled the old teapot stands of European
services.]
30. Six-inch dishes with green dragons on a ground of engraved
water-pattern painted in colour.
31. One-foot dishes painted in blue with archaic phœnixes
(_k’uei fêng_). [These designs are ornaments of bird form,
terminating in scrolls such as appear on ancient bronzes.]
32. Nine-inch dishes with blue ground and dragons in clouds
painted in yellow.
33. Medium-sized bowls with pure white glaze and ruby red (_pao
shao_) phœnix medallions.
34. Tea cups with dragons and clouds painted in yellow in a blue
ground.
35. Six-inch dishes with _chi hung_ (copper red) glaze.
36. Medium-sized bowls with _chi ch’ing_ (deep violet blue)
glaze.
37. Nine-inch dishes with _chi hung_ glaze.
38. Soup bowls, barrel shaped, with lustrous brown glaze.
39. Medium-sized bowls with red phœnix medallions in a celadon
(_tung ch’ing_) glaze.
40. Nine-inch dishes with silkworm scrolls and _ju-i_[482]
ornament in enamel colours.
41. Tea cups enamelled in colours with mandarin ducks and lotus
flowers.
42. Tea bowls (_ch’a wan_) with _chi ch’ing_ glaze.
43. Tea bowls decorated in colours with the _pa pao_ (eight
attributes of the Taoist Immortals; see p. 287).
44. Large bowls with the Eight Immortals in blue on red
enamelled waves.
45. Medium-sized bowls, blue and white inside, and with coloured
lotus flowers outside.
46. Bowls with the Eight Buddhist symbols of happy augury (_pa
chi hsiang_).
47. Porcelain bowls with green designs and peach yellow ground.
48. Five-inch dishes with purple and green dragons in a yellow
monochrome ground.
49. Three-inch platters with similar ornament.
50. Soup bowls of the fourth size (_ssŭ hao_) with green
monochrome glaze.
51. Five-inch dishes with phœnixes in clouds.
52. Medium-sized bowls with dragons and phœnixes among flowers
in coloured enamels.
53. Four-inch platters (_tieh_) with purple and green dragons in
yellow monochrome ground.
54. Nine-inch dishes painted in colours with the eight Buddhist
symbols among flowers.
55. Large bowls painted in colours with archaic phœnixes
(_k’uei fêng_) among flowers.
_Kuang Hsü_ [chch 2] (1875–1909)
Marked examples of this modern ware in the Franks Collection include a
saucer with coloured sprays in a cloudy pink enamel ground; a covered
cup with spout decorated in red with cartouches of seal characters
accompanied by translations in the ordinary script, and a dish with
blackthorn bough and pink blossoms in Tao Kuang style. In every case
the ware is coarse-grained and rough to the touch, while the glaze is
of the lustrous surface and “musliny” texture, which is characteristic
of the nineteenth century porcelains; and the painting is mechanical
and devoid of any distinction. There are two little saucers of better
quality both in material and painting, with stork and lotus designs in
mixed enamels and marks[483] which show that they are palace pieces
made for the Empress Dowager.
But the collector’s interest in Kuang Hsü porcelain is of a negative
kind. When it is frankly marked he sees and avoids it. But the Chinese
potters towards the close of the century evidently recovered some part
of the skill which the ravages of the T’ai p’ing rebels seemed to have
effectually dissipated; for they succeeded in making many excellent
_sang de bœuf_ reds and crackled emerald green monochromes which
have deceived collectors of experience. Even the best, however, of
these wares should be recognised by inferiority of form and material,
and in the case of red the fluescent glaze will be found in the modern
pieces to have overrun the foot rim, necessitating grinding of the base
rim. There are also fair imitations of the K’ang Hsi blue and white and
the enamelled vases of _famille verte_ or on-biscuit colours, and
even of the fine black and green grounds. But here again the inferior
biscuit, the lack of grace in the form and the stiffness of the designs
will be at once observed by the trained eye. When marked most of these
imitations have the _nien hao_ of K’ang Hsi, and this is almost
invariable on the modern blue and white.
There is, of course, a great quantity of modern porcelain, chiefly
enamelled and blue and white, made for the export trade and sold at
prices which compete successfully with those of the European wares.
It is chiefly in the style of the K’ang Hsi and Ch’ien Lung wares,
and is marked accordingly; but the ware is coarse-grained, and the
decorations summary, and there is no excuse for mistaking these obvious
reproductions for anything but what they are and, in fact, what they
pretend to be.
The brief reign of Hsüan T’ung [chch 2] (1909–1911) is a blank so
far as ceramic history is concerned; and with the fall of the Ch’ing
dynasty in 1912 the Imperial works ceased its activity, and it remains
to be seen whether Ching-tê Chên will again have the advantage of a
state factory to set a standard for the industry in general.