Porcelain. Dillon Edward

23

The same result may be obtained by painting one colour over the other, as we find in the black ground of the famille verte.

24

In Persia, where for three centuries at least the Chinese wares have been known and imitated, the word chini has almost the same connotation. See below for a discussion of the route by which this word reached England.

25

During the eighteenth century, however, the French missionaries remained in friendly relation with the Chinese court, especially with the Emperor Kien-lung, a man of culture and a poet. The Père Amiot sent home not only letters with valuable information, but from time to time presents of porcelain from the emperor. He was in correspondence with the minister Bertin, who was himself a keen collector of porcelain. See the notes in the Catalogue of Bertin’s sale, Paris, 1815.

26

Thanks to the industry of the present curator, Herr Zimmermann, the same may now be said of the great collection at Dresden.

27

For a discussion, and for many illustrations of the art of these early dynasties which survives chiefly in objects of jade or bronze, see Paléologue, Art Chinois, Paris, 1887.

28

The wild statements as to the transparency, above all, of the Sung and even the Tang porcelain may, however, appear to receive some confirmation from the reports of the old Arab travellers. But how much credence we can give to these authorities may be gleaned from a description of the fayence of Egypt, by a Persian traveller of the eleventh century. ‘This ware of Misr,’ he says, ‘is so fine and diaphanous that the hand may be seen through it when it is applied to the side of the vessel.’ He is speaking not of porcelain, but of a silicious glazed earthenware!

29

Pekin Oriental Society, 1886; see also Bushell’s Ceramic Art, p. 132 seq.

30

See the passage in his History (chapter ix.) where this stern censor, referring to the passion for collecting china, rebukes the ‘frivolous and inelegant fashion’ for ‘these grotesque baubles.’

31

The name Céladon first occurs in the Astrée, the once famous novel of Honoré D’Urfé. When later in the seventeenth century Céladon, the courtier-shepherd, was introduced on the stage, he appeared in a costume of greyish green, which became the fashionable colour of the time, and his name was transferred to the Chinese porcelain with a glaze of very similar colour, which was first introduced into France about that period.

32

Julien translated the word ching as blue, an unfortunate rendering in this case, which has been the cause of much confusion. He was so far justified in this, in that the same word is used by the Chinese for the cobalt blue of our ‘blue and white,’ while it was not applied by them to a pronounced green tint.

33

I shall return to this point when treating of English porcelain.

34

Somewhat later the Chinese were for a time neighbours of the Sassanian empire, where the arts of glazing pottery and making glass were highly developed. Sassanian bronzes, and probably textiles, have found their way to Japan.

35

The salt-glazed ware of Europe seems to be the only important exception to this perhaps rather sweeping generalisation.

36

It is possible, however, that some of the various tints of brown used from early Ming times, especially that known to the Chinese as ‘old gold,’ may have been suggested by this copper lustre. The ground on which this lustre is superimposed in some old Persian wares is of a very similar shade. Dr. Bushell mentions a tradition that the old potters tried to produce a yellow colour by adding metallic gold to their glaze, but that the gold all disappeared in the heat of the grand feu. They had therefore to fall back upon the or bruni.

37

Consult for this ware the beautifully illustrated monographs of Mr. Henry Wallis on early Persian ceramics.

38

The cobalt pigment itself, when not of native origin, was known to the Chinese in Ming times as Hui-hui ch’ing or ‘Mohammedan blue.’ The other names for the material, sunipo and sumali, probably point in the same direction.

39

A little white oval vase, in the Treasury of St. Mark’s, at Venice, may possibly be of this old Ting ware. The decoration is in low relief, and four little rings for suspension surround the mouth. In any case this is the only piece in this famous collection that has any claim to be classed as porcelain.

40

The style of this cloisonné decoration is almost identical with that seen in the two magnificent lacquer screens with landscapes and Buddhist emblems at South Kensington. The chains of pearls and pendeloques are characteristic of a style of painting often found on the beams and ceilings of the old Buddhist temples of Japan. This is, I think, a motif not found elsewhere on Chinese porcelain.

41

The late M. Du Sartel gives in his work on Chinese porcelain good photographs of some jars of this class in his collection. He was one of the first to call attention to this ware.

42

This dull surface is especially noticeable in some of the specimens with Arabic inscriptions in the British Museum; these date from the Cheng-te period (1505-21).

43

In Persia, too, and in that country accompanied by many other varieties of Chinese porcelain. For examples of these wares see above all the collection at South Kensington.

44

Relations des Musulmans avec les Chinois. It is not impossible, however, that further research may bring to light some information on this subject. Since writing this I hear from Dr. Bushell that some specimens of Saracenic enamelled glass, presumably of the fourteenth century, have lately been purchased in Pekin. The Arab trade with China was probably never more active than in the first half of the fifteenth century. It is with the Memlook Sultans, then ruling a wide empire from Cairo, that we must associate most of this enamelled glass, and the Eastern trade was in their hands.

45

See Bushell, p. 454.

46

Note that cobalt as an enamel colour was not applied on porcelain during Ming times.

47

There is, however, a curious old bowl in the Salting collection with the nien-hao of Cheng-te (1505-21), on which a design of iron red, two shades of green, a brownish purple, and a cobalt blue of poor lavender tint, all these colours over the glaze, is combined with an underglaze decoration of fish, in a full copper red. Note also the early use of a cobalt blue enamel, sur couverte, in the Kakiyemon ware of Japan.

48

Much of this kind was translated by Julien, and a good summary may be found in Hippisley’s paper contributed to the Smithsonian Institute, but the information from the same and other sources is more accurately translated and critically analysed in the seventh and eighth chapters of Dr. Bushell’s great work.

49

Yung-lo, according to the Chinese reckoning, did not commence his reign until the new year’s day following the death of his predecessor (1403). I have, however, thought it better to adopt the European method of reckoning dates.

50

The name Sentoku that they give to it is the Japanese reading of the characters forming this emperor’s name.

51

We may mention that a pair of wide-mouthed vases of this ware, shown at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1896, bore the nien-hao of Kia-tsing (1521-66) inscribed round the mouth.

52

More properly a fresh name was given to the period, but for the sake of brevity we here as elsewhere identify the emperor’s name with that given to the nien-hao.

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