Porcelain

But in contrast to ‘the stern delights’ of these flamboyant wares there is another kind of glaze, chemically closely allied, for it is also of transmutation copper origin, of which the associations are of another kind. This is the peach-bloom, the ‘apple-red and green,’ or again the ‘kidney-bean’ glaze of the Chinese. Although claiming an origin from Ming times, this glaze is always associated with the great viceroy Tsang Ying-hsuan. The little vases and water-vessels of a pale pinkish red, more or less mottled and varying in intensity, are highly prized by Chinese collectors.

Decoration with Slip.—There is a class of ware which might perhaps claim a separate division for itself—I mean that decorated with an engobe or slip. We have already mentioned the most important cases where this engobe is applied to the surface of single-glazed wares: these are, in the first place, the fond laque (Pl. xvi.), and in a less degree certain blue and even white wares. The slip, of a cream-like consistency, is as a rule painted on with a brush over the glaze, generally, I think, after a preliminary firing.⁹⁵ This engobe may then itself be decorated with colours, as we have seen in the case of the Ko yao, and the whole surface probably then covered with a second glaze.⁹⁶ Sometimes when the ground itself is nearly white we get an effect like the bianco sopra bianco of Italian majolica. This carefully prepared and finely ground engobe contains, in some cases at least, the same materials as those employed in the preparation of the Sha-tai or ‘sand-bodied’ porcelain.

Pierced or Open-work Decoration (Pl. xviii. 1).—We may here find place for another kind of decoration, one much admired in Europe in the eighteenth century.

PLATE XVIII. 1—CHINESE, PIERCED WARE, BLUE AND WHITE

2—CHINESE, BLUE AND WHITE WARE

This is obtained by piercing the paste so as to form an open-work design, generally some simple diapered or key pattern, but sometimes flowers or figures of cranes. The little apertures or windows thus formed may be filled in by the glaze (if this is sufficiently viscous to stretch across them) in the simple process of dipping. In this case the glaze takes in part the place of the paste, and indeed in the closely allied ‘Gombroon’ ware of Persia it is the thick, viscous glaze rather than the friable sandy paste that holds the vessel together. It is the plain white ware to which this decoration is generally applied in China. There is one class where this pierced work is associated with groups of little figures, in biscuit, in high or full relief—as is well illustrated by a series of small cups in the Salting collection, some of which bear traces of gilding and colours.

The term ‘rice-grain’ was originally applied to the open-work diapers filled in with glaze. As a whole this kind of work may be referred to the later part of the reign of Kien-lung, and especially to that of his successor, Kia-king (1795-1820), so that it is not unlikely that the Persian frit-ware, some of which is of earlier date, may have served as a model.

Blue and White Ware.—This is, on the whole, the most important as well as the best defined class of Chinese porcelain. The Chinese name, Ching hua pai ti (literally ‘blue flowers white ground‘), defines its nature well enough.

We have no information as to the origin and development of blue and white porcelain in China, nor indeed do I know of any collection where an attempt has been made to classify the vast material. We must here content ourselves with a few notes which at best may indicate the ground on which such a classification should be made. We have seen (p. page 75) that there is at least some presumptive evidence that the Chinese may have derived their knowledge of the use of cobalt (as a material to decorate the ground of their porcelain) from Western Asia, at a time when both China and Persia were governed by one family of Mongol khans. For we know now that in Syria or in Persia, in the twelfth or early in the thirteenth century, a rough but artistic ware was painted with a hasty decoration of cobalt blue and covered with a thick alkaline glaze; while in China, at that time, we have no evidence for the existence of any porcelain other than monochrome.

It is possible that the earliest Chinese type of the under-glaze blue may be found in certain thick brownish crackle ware, decorated under the glaze, in blue, with a few strokes of the brush. Plates and dishes of this kind have been found in Borneo, associated with early types of celadon.⁹⁷ A similar ware, not necessarily of great antiquity, is often found in common use in the north of China and, I think, in Korea, and with it we may perhaps associate the greyish-yellow Ko yao decorated with patches of blue and white slip.

It is very likely that there would be a strong opposition on the part of the Chinese literati to such a novel and exotic mode of decoration, but that such opposition would be less felt in the case of ware made for exportation, or it may be for use among the less conservative Mongols. We have an instance of a similar feeling in the protest that we know was made some two or three hundred years later against the application of coloured enamels to the surface of porcelain.

Of the thousands of specimens of blue and white porcelain in our collections there is probably no single piece for which we can claim a date earlier than the fifteenth century. We can, however, distinguish two types among the examples, which for the reasons given on page 83 we may safely assign to the Ming period. The first is distinguished by a pure but pale blue, and the design (generally somewhat sparingly applied) is carefully drawn with a fine brush. This, it would seem, was the ware imitated by the Japanese at the princely kilns of Mikawaji. The other type is distinguished by the depth and brilliancy of its colour, the true sapphire tint, differing from the later blue of the eighteenth century, in which there is always a purplish tendency. There are some good specimens of this type in the British Museum, but we will take as our standard a jar at South Kensington about twelve inches in height (Pl. xix.). The remarkable thickness of the paste in this vase shown in the neck, which has at some time been cut down, the marks of the junction of the moulded pieces of which it was built up, the slight patina developed in the surface of the glaze, are all signs that point to an early origin. But what is above all noticeable is the jewel-like brilliancy of the blue pigment with which the decoration—a design of kilin sporting under pine-trees—is painted.

PLATE XIX. CHINESE BLUE AND WHITE WARE

When we come to the reign of Wan-li (1572-1619), to which time we may assign the beginning of the direct exportation to Europe of Chinese porcelain, a period of decline has already set in. The rare pieces of blue and white so prized in Elizabethan and early Stuart days are in no way remarkable either in their execution or in their decoration.

We come now to an important class of blue and white ware which looms out large in many collections. I mean the big plates and jars with roughly executed designs often showing a Persian influence. The blue is never pure—indeed it is often little better than a slaty grey, and sometimes almost black. Most of what the dealers now know as ‘Ming porcelain’ may be included in this class. To understand the source of this porcelain we must refer the reader to what we shall have to say in Chapter xiii. about the trade of China with Persia in the time of Shah Abbas and with the north of India, during the reigns of the great Mogul rulers of the seventeenth century. The increasing demand from these countries coincided with a period of decline in China, for the period between the death of Wan-li in 1620 and the revival of the manufacture at King-te-chen towards the end of that century, is almost a blank in the history of Chinese porcelain. But the export trade that had sprung up at the end of the sixteenth century was actively carried on in spite of the political troubles, and at no other time was the nature of the ware produced so largely influenced by the foreign demand. But this demand was at first chiefly for the Mohammedan East, and what reached Europe was mostly the result of re-exportation from India and from the Persian Gulf.⁹⁸ This picturesque and decorative ware is well represented at South Kensington by specimens obtained in Persia, and many fine pieces have lately been brought from India. Of this class of blue and white ware we have already spoken in a former chapter (see page 84).

In Egypt, again, blue and white porcelain was greatly appreciated both for decorative purposes and for common use. Large plates and dishes painted with a scale-like pattern, formed of petals of flowers, are still to be found in the old Arab houses of Cairo.

Already by the beginning of the seventeenth century plates and bowls of the Sinico-Persian type must have reached Holland in large quantities, and we find them frequently introduced into their pictures by the still-life painters of the time. I will only give two examples: (1) A large still-life at Dresden by Frans Snyders (1579-1657), where as many as eight plates and bowls, mostly roughly decorated with a greyish cobalt sous couverte, are introduced; (2) a small picture in the Louvre by William Kalff (1621-1693). Here we see a large ‘ginger-jar’ with deep blue ground and white reserves. The porcelain introduced by the Dutch painters is without exception of the blue and white class, and in the earlier works the slaty blue tints are the most common.

But European influence must now and then have made itself felt in China before this time, to judge by some large jars at Dresden decorated with arabesques of unmistakable renaissance type. One of these has been fitted with a lid of Delft ware, made to match the other covers of Chinese origin, and this Dutch-made lid cannot be dated later than the first half of the seventeenth century.⁹⁹

But it is to the next age that the bulk of the vast collection of blue and white brought together at Dresden by Augustus the Strong belongs. The lange Lijzen, the famous dragon-vases, the large fish-bowls, and the endless series of smaller objects collected by his agents from every side, have made this royal collection a place of pilgrimage for all china maniacs since his day. Not that the general average of the blue and white ware is very high. We find here for the first time specimens of the famous ‘hawthorn ginger-jars’ so dear to later collectors of ‘Nankin china.’ Of course this porcelain did not come from Nankin, the jars were never used for ginger, and the decoration was not derived from the hawthorn—a flower unknown in Chinese art. But it is in these jars that the modern connoisseur, both in England and America, has found the completest expression and highest triumph of the art of the Far East. No words are too strong to express his enthusiasm. We are especially told to look for a certain ‘palpitating quality’ in the blue ground. We hear from Dr. Bushell that these ‘hawthorn jars’ are in China especially associated with the New Year; filled with various objects they are then given as presents. The decoration of prunus flowers (a species allied to our blackthorn) is relieved against a background of ice, and it is the rendering of this crackled ice in varying shades of blue that gives the special cachet to the ware.¹⁰⁰

There is a curious variety of blue and white in which the outline of the design is filled up by a hatching of cross-lines as in an engraving. The prototype of this kind of decoration probably dates from Ming times, and it may possibly be derived from some kind of textile.

Enamel Colours over the Glaze.—We have already attempted to follow the stages by which the application of enamel colours over the glaze found its way into general use. We saw that before the introduction of fusible enamels melting at the gentle heat of the muffle-stove, somewhat similar effects were obtained by painting with certain colours upon the already fired body or paste—on a biscuit ground, in fact. The coloured slip used in this way, differing in no respect from a true glaze, was then subjected to a fire of medium intensity, that is to say, it was exposed to the demi grand feu of the kiln.

I think that the obscure problem of the nature of the coloured ware so minutely described by Chinese writers and ascribed by them to early Ming times, and the relation of this ware to the first forms of the famille verte can only find its solution by allowing a wider play to the use of painting on biscuit and subsequent refiring, and that there may probably have existed intermediate stages between the demi grand feu and the fully developed muffle-stove. It is indeed possible that the same pieces may have successively been exposed to both these fires.¹⁰¹

The curious bowl, of very archaic aspect, lately added to the Salting collection (see note, p. 89), illustrates well the difficulties in accepting as final a decision as to date based upon the nature of the enamel. This bowl bears the nien-hao of Ching-te (1505-21), and may well date from that time, but among the enamel colours over the glaze we find a cobalt blue (of a poor lavender tint indeed); we are told, however, that the use of cobalt as an enamel colour was unknown before the time of Kang-he.¹⁰²

Of the many schemes and varieties of decoration that crop up in the course of the eighteenth century as a consequence of the increased palette at the command of the enameller and of the miscellaneous demand for foreign countries, we have already said something. Many important types must remain unmentioned, and some are indeed scarcely represented in our home collections. Of this I will give, in conclusion, a striking instance. In the whole of the great collection at Dresden, now so admirably arranged by Dr. Zimmermann, there is perhaps nothing more striking than the circular stand covered with a trophy of large vases, the decoration of which, though bold in general effect, is entirely built up by fine lines of iron-red helped out by a little gold. These vases, from their fine technique, I should assign to the end of the reign of Kang-he, or possibly to that of Yung-cheng (1722-35). It is a curious fact that by these parallel lines of iron-red an effect is produced at a distance very similar to that obtained by a wash of the rouge d’or. Possibly the aim was to imitate that colour. I have seen a similar effect produced by red hatching on some English ware of the eighteenth century. I do not think that this porcelain was made for the Persian market, as has been asserted, for in that case we should find specimens of it in the South Kensington collection.¹⁰³ There is, I think, only one example of this ware in the British Museum, and in the Salting collection only a pair of insignificant cups and saucers. On the other hand, in the Dresden collection, whole classes even of eighteenth century wares are unrepresented. I mention these facts to accentuate the vast field covered by Chinese porcelain. It must be borne in mind that the Chinese manufactured for the whole civilised world, and that the taste and fashion in each country influenced, though often very indirectly, and in a way not always to be recognised at first sight, the forms and the decoration of the objects exported to it. This influence, making for variety and change, has been in constant conflict with, and has counteracted, the native conservative habit. It is an influence that has probably made itself felt from very early days, but it culminated in the eighteenth century. Indeed the rapid decline of Chinese porcelain that set in before the end of that century was in no small degree promoted by the unintelligent demand from Western countries at that time.

We shall later on have to look upon this question

from a reversed point of view, and we shall have to notice how the fictile wares of other countries were influenced, and finally in part replaced by the products of the kilns of King-te-chen. For in any general history of porcelain this influence of the East upon the West, together with the return current from West to East, is the central question. By bearing in mind these mutual influences a simplicity and unity are given to this history which we might look for in vain in that of any other art of equal importance.

Plate XX.

Chinese Design in red and gold.

How the porcelain of King-te-chen found its way at first to the surrounding minor states—to Korea, to Indo-China, and to Japan—and was more or less successfully copied in these countries; how, on the other hand, in India and in Persia the foreign ware, though long in general use, was never imitated;¹⁰⁴ and how, finally, after reaching the Christian West this porcelain influenced and in part replaced the homemade fayence, even before the secret of its composition was discovered—these, I think, are the prime factors in the history of porcelain.

It will, however, be convenient to say something of the porcelain made in the surrounding countries, especially in Japan, before taking up the subject of the Chinese commerce with Europe, for this reason among others: the products of the Japanese kilns became so inextricably mixed up with those of King-te-chen in the course of their journey to the West, that it would be impossible to treat of the one class apart from the other.

But before ending with the porcelain of China we must take a rapid glance at a large and complicated group—that decorated wholly or in part in European style.

Quite early in the century, perhaps before 1700, figures and groups in plain white ware, for the most part attired in the European costume of the day, were exported from China. Many of these grotesque figures may be seen in the great Dresden collection, and a few in the British Museum. Later on it became the fashion for the European merchants at Canton to supply the native enamellers of that city with engravings, to be copied by them in colours on the white ware sent down from King-te-chen. In other cases the captain of a Dutch or English vessel lying in the Canton roads would employ a native artist to decorate a plate or dish with a picture of his good ship.

But the most frequent task given to these Canton enamellers was the reproduction of elaborate coats of arms upon the centre of a plate or dish, or sometimes upon a whole dinner-service. There is in the British Museum a remarkable collection of this armorial china, brought together for the most part by the late Sir A. W. Franks.¹⁰⁵ Orders came not from England alone, but from Holland, Sweden, Germany, and even Russia. Services were thus decorated for Frederick the Great and other royal heads. The practice seems to have been kept up during the whole of the eighteenth century, but we do not know the precise date at which it was introduced. In a few cases—the large Talbot plate in the British Museum is an instance (Pl. xxi.)—the arms were painted in blue under the glaze, and such decoration was probably executed at King-te-chen. The small plate with the Okeover arms in the same collection was, according to the family tradition, ordered as early as the year 1700, but the decoration in my opinion would undoubtedly point to a later date¹⁰⁶ (Pl. xii. 2).

PLATE XXI. CHINESE, BLUE AND WHITE WARE

It is hardly necessary at the present day to mention that this armorial china has nothing to do with Lowestoft. A fictitious interest was, however, long given to this ware by its strange attribution to that town.

Much Chinese porcelain, either plain white or sparely decorated under the glaze with blue, was imported during the eighteenth century, to be daubed over, often in the worst taste, with a profusion of gaudy colours, in Holland, in Germany, and in England. At Venice, too, the plain Oriental ware was at one time elaborately painted with a black enamel.

More interest attaches to the porcelain enamelled at Canton for the Indian market. The Chinese seem in some way to have associated the yang-tsai or ‘foreign colours’ with the enamels made in the south of India, especially at Calicut, and it is possible that Indian patterns and schemes of colour may have influenced some of the developments of the famille rose. The Canton enamellers must at the same time have been working on the richly decorated ware for the Siamese market, but it is on their enamel paintings on copper that the Indo-Siamese influence is chiefly seen (see next chapter).

Nor were these exotic schemes of decoration confined to the Canton enamellers. At more than one time there was something like a rage for copying foreign designs—Japanese, among others—at King-te-chen, and that not for trade purposes alone, for as we have mentioned already, both Kang-he and Kien-lung seem to have taken a passing interest in the strange productions of the outer barbarian.

Of the many kinds of ceramic wares made in different parts of China which from the opacity of the paste we cannot class as porcelain, we can only mention two, both of which would probably come under the head of our kaolinic stoneware:—1. The Yi-hsing yao, made at a place of that name not far from Shanghai, which includes the red unglazed ware, esteemed by the Chinese for the brewing of tea. This is the so-called Boccaro successfully copied by Böttger. Sometimes we find this stoneware painted with enamel colours thickly laid on, and the design is often accentuated by ridges or cloisons. 2. The Kuang yao, of which there are two classes. The ware made near Amoy is a yellowish to brownish stoneware, thickly glazed and rudely decorated. This coarse pottery is much in favour with the Chinese colonists in America and elsewhere. Again in the south of the province of Kuang-tung, at Yang-chiang-hsien, a reddish stoneware has long been made. It is covered with a thick glaze, often mottled, more or less blue, and sometimes resembling the flambé glazes of King-te-chen. Indeed this Kuang yao at one time was copied at the latter place.¹⁰⁷ It is often stated that true porcelain was made in Kuang-tung, but the evidence on the whole is against this. We will quote, however, what the Abbé Raynal says (Histoire du Commerce des Européens dans les Deux Indes, 1770). He states that competition with King-te-chen had been abandoned ‘excepté au voisinage de Canton, où on fabrique la porcelaine connue sous le nom de porcelaine des Indes. La pâte en est longue et facile; mais en général les couleurs sont très inférieures. Toutes les couleurs, excepté le bleu, y relèvent en bosse et sont communément mal appliquées. La plupart des tasses, des assiettes et des autres vases que portent nos négocians, sortent de cette manufacture, moins estimée à la Chine que ne le sont dans nos contrées celles de fayence.‘¹⁰⁸ Compare with this what we have said about the rough porcelain exported to India in the seventeenth century (p. 85).

Since the extinction of the Ting kilns an opaque white stoneware has been largely manufactured in the north, and near Pekin a commoner earthenware is largely made (Bushell, pp. 631-638).

The bricks with which the Porcelain Tower of Nankin was constructed were for the most part composed of a kaolinic stoneware.

Finally, we should point out that nearly all these various kinds of stoneware are represented in the British Museum collection.