witnessed still further advances in the direction of technical
perfection, accompanied on the artistic side by a corresponding
growth of the tendency to over-refinement. The discovery during the
latter years of K’ang Hsi of a rose-coloured enamel derived from
gold, varying in shade from pink to crimson, opened the way for a
revolution in the colour-scheme which is the chief characteristic
of the painted porcelain of Yung Chêng and his successor Ch’ien
Lung. From the prevalence of this colour, the type of porcelain on
which it occurs received the name of “_famille rose_” among French
connoisseurs. The widened range of the enamel-painter’s palette made
possible a completely naturalistic manner, in which all conventionalism
of treatment was abandoned. No album of flora can show more faithful
botanical drawings than are to be seen in such exquisite subjects
after nature as that in the piece reproduced in Plate 2; in no work on
ornithology could be found truer renderings of bird life. The plate,
painted with a bird of the kingfisher family perched on the branch of
a gnarled plum-tree in flower, belongs to the collection bequeathed by
Mr. W. H. Cope. The spray of blossoming pomegranate which completes
the composition is naturally rendered by means of the newly-invented
carmine enamel. While we may question the fitness of a subject thus
treated for the decoration of a porcelain plate, we cannot but admire
the exquisite delicacy of the painting and the skilful arrangement of
the composition.
PLATE 12
Toilette-pot and Cover, St. Cloud, about 1700, with ormolu mount of
the period. Height, 8¾ in. Given by Mr. J. H. Fitzhenry.
No. C 457-1909. See p. 50.
Mark concealed by the mounting.
[Illustration]
Perhaps the most famous of the productions of the Yung Chêng period
are the plates and cups and saucers of thin “egg-shell” china with
enamel decoration of figure-subjects or birds and flowers enclosed
within elaborate borders of complex diaper. The same fine porcelain
was employed as a material for lanterns; fine examples of these are
exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Concurrently with such technical refinements as these, there came about
under Yung Chêng an archaistic revival of ancient wares, resulting
from the commission given by the emperor for the reproduction of
the ceramic treasures of past centuries preserved in his palaces.
Imitations were made both of the shapes and of the numerous varieties
of glaze of the factories of the Sung dynasty, while in the “blue
and white” category the spotted manner of painting already noticed
as characteristic of the reign of Hsüan Tê was specially in favour.
Another ancient type extensively reproduced was the “five colour” class
of the later Ming emperors. Where there cannot be traced a refinement
in the handling of the design foreign to the earlier painters, the
copies are readily distinguished from their prototypes by a difference
in the quality of the colours employed. The underglaze cobalt-blue has
a decidedly violet _nuance_, a delicate lilac replaces the earlier
purple, and the green is of a lighter grass-coloured hue; furthermore,
the enamel colours often display a faint iridescence where the light
glances on them. The vase represented in Plate 9 is a fine example of
this archaistic school of the time of Yung Chêng. The shape, of noble
simplicity, dates back to the earliest period of the Ming dynasty, but
the decoration belongs to the “five colour” type of Wan Li. The design
is composed of a dragon and a mythical phœnix (_fêng huang_), emblems
of the emperor, amid flowers and foliage of the tree-peony on wavy
stems. The breadth of treatment, the vigorous drawing, the masterly
balance of the colouring, entitle this vase to a place among the best
performances of the Chinese potter.
By the time of the Emperor CH’IEN LUNG, whose reign of sixty years
ended in 1795, deteriorating influences made themselves felt with
ever-increasing insistence, and the story of Chinese porcelain from
this time forward is a record of steady decline. The seeds of decay
may be considered to have been planted about the beginning of the
seventeenth century, when the establishment of the European trading
companies brought China into close and constant touch with the Western
world. The new markets thus opened for Chinese products inevitably
brought about the creation of a new style in Chinese art to suit the
taste of European buyers. Traces of Western influence may be discerned,
if not in the decoration, at all events in the forms of Chinese
porcelain all through the seventeenth century, and in K’ang Hsi’s reign
its effect is fully apparent. The splendid rebirth of art and culture
consequent upon the restoration of peace in the empire under his rule
availed for a time to check the sinister effect of these changes; but
as the eighteenth century advanced, a new class of wares affecting
shapes unknown to Oriental customs and designed to meet Western
requirements, was produced in ever-increasing quantities, and did not
fail to influence the whole output of the Chinese kilns. The commercial
spirit thus engendered, hastened the decline already originated by too
close attention to the technical side of ceramic craftsmanship. The
result is seen in the shapeless extravagances, wonderful in technique,
but devoid of grace and beauty, produced in the latter years of Ch’ien
Lung, and in the dreary “India china” made for export through the
various India companies of Europe. There was a momentary gleam of
revival in the nineteenth century under Taou Kuang, when creditable
copies were made of some of the Yung Chêng designs, but such imitative
efforts do not avail to arouse the interest of those to whom the art of
a country ceases to appeal, when it reflects the genius of a people no
longer in the full vigour of manhood.
II
JAPANESE PORCELAIN
The subject of Japanese porcelain can only be briefly discussed here,
on the one hand in its relation to the Chinese porcelain of which it
may be considered an offshoot, and on the other, from the point of view
of its influence on European factories. Though the origin of the art in
Japan is obscure, it is certain that the Japanese learned the making
of porcelain from their neighbours across the sea. Tradition asserts
that one Gorodayiu Go Shonsui visited the Chinese factories in 1510
with this purpose, and on his return established a kiln of short-lived
duration for the manufacture in his own country. It is not, however,
until the beginning of the following century that sure ground is
reached; about that time the necessary materials were discovered in the
province of Hizen, in the extreme south-west of the island empire, by
a Corean potter named Risanpei, and porcelain kilns were set up by him
at ARITA, which remains to the present day one of the chief Japanese
centres of the industry.
At first only blue and white wares were made, but about 1645 the
method of painting in enamel colours over the glaze was learned from
a Chinaman by a potter of the Arita factory named Kakiyemon, and the
style of decoration associated with him was inaugurated. This style
was maintained by more than one generation of the Kakiyemon family,
and characterises a quantity of the porcelain exported to Europe
through the Dutch merchants established at Deshima, in the outskirts
of Nagasaki. As will be seen later, it provided patterns for imitation
in many of the earlier European porcelain works; most of the pieces
so imitated, as, for instance, the prototype of the Chelsea jar
figuring in Plate 23, bear designs of a formal character, showing that
they probably do not belong to the earliest work of the Kakiyemon
school. A typical example of this later manner is a large jar at South
Kensington, painted with a group of figures and trees repeated in three
panels, reserved on a close pattern of peony-flowers and foliage; a
dish in the Brighton Museum, bearing on the back the name “_Kaki_”
in seal characters, shows formal designs painted with extraordinary
neatness with a full palette of enamel colours, betokening a still
later stage in the development of the style. Charming as these more
familiar designs are by reason of their clean drawing and the purity
of their colours, they must be regarded as somewhat foreign to the
Japanese genius, being the outcome of the effort to please the taste of
Western buyers. The purely Japanese manner which may be attributed to
the first Kakiyemon is illustrated by some small plates at Kensington
from the Bowes Collection; the design is limited to slight floral
sprays or a few detached blossoms in three colours only, red, green,
and light blue, so as to allow the qualities of the soft white glaze to
be fully appreciated.
PLATE 13
Toilette-pot and Cover, Chantilly, about 1735, painted in the style
of the Japanese Kakiyemon ware. Silver-gilt mount of the period.
Height, 7 in. Given by Mr. J. H. Fitzhenry.
No. C 424-1909. See p. 53.
Mark: a hunting-horn in red.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The baneful influence of contact with the West, already noticed in
dealing with Chinese porcelain, did not fail to make itself
felt in the work of the Arita potters. From the last quarter of the
seventeenth century may be dated the appearance of the ware generally
considered in Europe as peculiarly characteristic of Japanese ceramics,
but in reality of a type entirely alien from native ideas. Though made
at Arita, it is usually called by the name of the neighbouring port
of Imari, from which it was exported. The style is embodied in jars
and dishes generally of large dimensions, decorated in underglaze blue
of muddy tone, with dull red, green, purple and yellow enamels and
gilding added at a subsequent firing over the glaze. Their effect is
occasionally pleasing and handsome, but in general these objects have
a dull and lifeless air that places them among the least interesting
of all Oriental wares. This style was sometimes copied both at Meissen
and at Chelsea during their earlier stages, and suggested some of
the designs of the Worcester factory, but it was not till the first
decades of the nineteenth century that it was extensively imitated,
when the “Japan patterns” of Derby and the Staffordshire works enjoyed
a great popularity; it may fairly be said that in the reduced scale
necessitated by their application to table wares, and in the livelier
colouring obtainable in the English soft porcelain, these patterns gain
an attractiveness wanting in their Oriental forerunners.
* * * * *
Other kilns were founded in the neighbourhood of Arita under the
protection of feudal lords, by whose patronage they were secured from
the debasing effects of foreign trade. Porcelain began to be made about
1660 at the kilns of OKAWAJI, founded at an earlier date for making
earthenware by a chief of the Nabeshima family. Here the methods of
painting employed were those of the later Arita potters, but the
colours are purer and the decoration, designed to please native tastes,
is at once less florid and more spontaneous in character.
Fine porcelain was made in the second half of the eighteenth century at
MIKAWAJI, also in the province of Hizen, under the munificent patronage
of the feudal lord of Hirato. The wares are of two principal types. The
first is painted in blue of a quiet grey tone with designs of exquisite
delicacy, inspired by the Chinese “blue and white” of the time of
Hsüan Tê; and it should be noted that this milder quality of blue was
deliberately aimed at by the potters of the best Japanese schools, in
preference to the deep sapphire blue attained by the Chinese at their
highest period of development. The second class of Mikawaji ware is
seen in the skilfully modelled figures of divinities, children, or
mythical creatures such as the Corean lion; they are usually enlivened
with coloured glazes of three harmonious tones, blue, russet-brown, and
black.
* * * * *
Two other Japanese factories remain to be noticed in their relation to
Chinese ceramics, in the provinces of Kaga and Kishiu respectively. The
kilns at KUTANI in Kaga were established in 1664 and made two distinct
classes of ware. One of these is called “_Ao Kutani_,” or green Kutani,
from the predominance of green in the colouring, and is characterised
by the use of transparent green, yellow, manganese-violet, and blue
enamels of great intensity, washed over strong floral or landscape
designs drawn in heavy black outline. This type is perfectly
exemplified by a fine dish in the series at South Kensington brought
together by the Japanese Government in 1876. While it appears to be
reminiscent in its methods of the “three colour” class of the
Chinese, its artistic character is free from extraneous elements and
entirely Japanese in genius. The other type, known _par excellence_
as “_Ko Kutani_,” or old Kutani ware, includes a brilliant red among
its colours, and is the ancestor of the red and gold Kaga porcelain of
recent times.
PLATE 15
Ewer and Basin, Sèvres, dated 1763, painted with groups of children
in the manner of Boucher on a _jaune jonquille_ ground. Mark of the
decorator Catrice. Ewer, height, 6-5/8 in.; basin, length, 10¾ in.
Jones Collection.
No. 753-1882. See p. 56.
Mark:
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The porcelain made in the Nishihama park, near Wakayama in the province
of KISHIU, dates only from the earlier years of the nineteenth century,
but is of interest as a revival of the early Ming ware with designs in
coloured glazes separated by outlines moulded in slight relief; the
enamels of the Kishiu kilns produce a wonderful richness of effect,
notably where turquoise blue is used in combination with deep violet.
III
ITALIAN PORCELAIN
PLATE 16
Écuelle, with Cover and Stand, Sèvres, dated 1768, with pastoral
subjects after Boucher, by Chabry, on a turquoise-blue ground.
Écuelle, height, 4½ in.; stand, diameter, 4¾ in. Jones Collection.
No. 758-1882. See p. 57.
Mark:
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The manufacture of porcelain in Europe has a history of very recent
origin when compared with the long story of its invention and
development in the land of its birth, but what it lacks in antiquity is
atoned for by the interest and diversity of the vicissitudes through
which it has passed. We can never know at what period and by whose
agency the mysterious substance was first brought into Western lands.
From the earliest records that can rightly be supposed to refer to it,
we gather that the rare vessels of porcelain which found their way
from China in the Middle Ages were regarded with superstitious wonder
as the work of superhuman hands, to be treasured as jealously as gold
or precious stones. How to rival this ware of pure white surface and
translucent substance may well have been the problem that many a potter
of those days attempted to solve, but it must have been the despair of
the rudely-trained craftsmen whose hands shaped the rough stone-wares
of the Rhineland, or the lead-glazed slip-wares, with their artless
scratched or moulded designs, of mediæval France and Italy. The road to
success was first opened by the potters of the last-named country. The
Italian tin-enamelled maiolica, which attained its full development
at the end of the fifteenth century, marks the first pronounced step
in the advance. It derived its inspiration in the first instance not
immediately from Chinese porcelain, but indirectly through the painted
earthenware of the Near East and of the Moors in Spain, which was
itself evolved in emulation of the Chinese wares. By the early years
of the sixteenth century, the latter must have been quite familiar to
the Italian maiolica potters, who used the term “_alla porcellana_” to
denote a certain type of design in which they sought to imitate the
contemporary Oriental “blue and white.”
The mere outward simulation that could be achieved by coating grey
earthenware with pure white enamel did not satisfy the keen spirits
of an age when every mind was pregnant with new ideas, and no task
seemed too gigantic for the artist’s hand. To produce a body which, in
substance and surface as well, should equal the object of imitation,
must have been the aim of many a pioneer in the art of whose efforts
all record has been lost.
If contemporary documents are to be trusted, it would appear that
something in the nature of porcelain was made in Italy as early as the
first quarter of the sixteenth century; it is not surprising to learn
that the scene of the first successful experiments was Venice, a city
by that time famous all over Europe for its glass, a substance for
the manufacture of which its seaboard situation gave it exceptional
advantages. Though the literary evidences for the fabrication are
too clear to be reasonably doubted, no piece of this early Venetian
porcelain is known to exist at the present day. We reach sure ground
towards the end of the century, when we come to the porcelain invented
at FLORENCE about 1575 by Francesco de’ Medici, the second Grand
Duke of Tuscany. This, the earliest European porcelain of which
specimens still survive, is an imperfect artificial porcelain largely
compounded of glass. It is mentioned in a letter dated 1576 by the
Venetian ambassador at the Tuscan Court. The only dated specimen known
is a flask with the arms of Philip II. of Spain and the date 1581,
now in the museum at Sèvres. The Grand Duke probably ceased after a
short time to take interest in the factory, and it became a private
enterprise; of its subsequent fortunes something will be said on a
later page.
PLATE 14
Jardinière, Sèvres, dated 1761, painted with cupids on a _rose
Pompadour_ ground. Mark of the decorator Dubois. Height, 7½ in.
Jones Collection.
No. 787-1882. See p. 56.
Mark:
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
While as regards material the object of emulation was Chinese
porcelain, the forms affected by the Medici porcelain show little
indication of extraneous influence. By their variety and by the
gracefulness of many they bear witness to the taste and inventiveness
of the ducal patron, who interested himself personally in the processes
of fabrication and was doubtless in artistic matters the guiding spirit
of the works. The decoration, painted in cobalt-blue usually of rather
dull tone, either alone or outlined with pale manganese-violet, is of
two distinct styles. One of these is made up of grotesques of the kind
familiar in the later maiolica of the Urbino school. The other style
is marked by Oriental motives, derived in some cases from Chinese,
but more often from Near Eastern sources. The designs are never mere
copies, but rather interpretations of their prototypes; often indeed
they betray only slight traces of the inspiration to which they are due.
The last-named class of design is well exemplified by the bottle
in Plate 10, one of the four pieces of Medici porcelain belonging
to the Victoria and Albert Museum. The subtle shapeliness of the
modelling and the ably-distributed painted ornament, in which a slight
suggestion of the contemporary Chinese “blue and white” of Wan Li is
perceptible, betoken the work of an artist whose conceptions were
superior to the material at his disposal for their embodiment.
* * * * *
From the scanty documents that remain, it would appear that the
venture of Francesco de’ Medici was abandoned for a time, and that his
successor Ferdinand I. summoned to Florence one Niccolò Sisti for the
purpose of re-establishing there the manufacture of porcelain. The
kilns were later removed to PISA, and a document exists to prove that
in 1620 Sisti received monetary aid for his work from the then-reigning
Grand Duke, Cosmo II. In the light of these records, meagre as they
are, the greatest interest attaches to the little bowl figuring in
Plate 11, one of the most precious documentary pieces of porcelain in
the South Kensington collections; it was formerly in the possession
of Mr. Henry Griffith and later belonged to Mr. Henry Willett of
Brighton, on whose death it was acquired for the Museum. This bowl is
of remarkably thin material, light to handle, and shows a somewhat
yellow tone in the paste by transmitted light. The design painted round
the outside consists of four alternate sprays of hyacinth and lily,
separated by flowers resembling scabious or cornflower branching from
a curved serrated leaf; these motives are obviously borrowed from the
Turkish earthenware of the period. In a medallion inside the bowl is a
view of a city with a domed building; on the bottom are the initials
“G. G. P. F.” and the date 1638.
The only other piece hitherto identified as belonging to the same
kind is another bowl, in the collection of Mr. Montague Yeats Brown.
Like its companion, it is light in weight and thin in the walls. It
is decorated round the sides externally and internally with a frieze
of birds perched upon rocks; inside is a medallion with a group of
ruins among trees, curiously anticipating the fanciful compositions
seen on Worcester and Bow china of the eighteenth century. In the
painting there appear in addition to cobalt-blue two colours of
common occurrence in the maiolica of the Urbino school, a strong
brownish-orange and a greenish-blue derived from copper, the latter
much blurred in the firing. This bowl also bears a signature and
date, “I. G. P. F. 1627”, and it is of extreme interest to observe
that both bowls are marked with the same devices, a cross potent
and a curious aggregation of strokes, of which the significance is
difficult to determine; evidently these signs are the distinctive mark
of the factory. The meaning of the initials is also uncertain, but in
view of the known existence of the Sisti factory at Pisa a few years
before the date on the earlier bowl, it may be conjectured that the
last letters “P. F.”, occurring in both signatures alike, stand for
“_Pisanus fecit_” or “_Pisano fece_”; if that be so, the preceding
“G” may indicate the family name of the potters who took over from
Sisti the secret of porcelain making, while the “I” and the first “G”
respectively refer to the baptismal names of different members of the
family. Be this as it may, these two bowls, unique in the nature of
their paste and decoration and by reason of the dates they bear, are of
the utmost interest as isolated landmarks in the history of European
porcelain, standing midway between the production of Francesco de’
Medici and the earliest French achievements.
* * * * *
The Tuscan experiments above recorded were made at an unpropitious
time, and were consequently destined to have no lasting effect in the
development of European ceramics. Italy was then fast relapsing into
the state of torpor which followed as a reaction from her restless
activities in the age of the renaissance, and the time had not yet
arrived when the influx of Chinese porcelain, resulting from the
extension of trade relations with the East, was to spur on the potters
and chemists of Europe, aided by royal patronage, to success in their
efforts to produce a similar kind of ware. Porcelain is not heard
of again in Italy till about 1720, when Francesco Vezzi, a Venetian
goldsmith, in co-operation with a deserter from the Saxon royal
factory, succeeded for a short time in producing hard porcelain of a
type similar to that of Meissen. At a later date another Saxon workman
named Hewelcke set up a short-lived factory in VENICE, but no porcelain
of importance was produced there till the establishment of the works of
Geminiano Cozzi in 1765.