In the detailed account of King-te-chen given by the Jesuit father, we find no mention of the imperial manufactory. Are we to understand that he found no admittance to these workshops? His acquaintance with the higher mandarins makes this unlikely. Nor can we think that these works were closed during the long period of his stay in this district. Another omission that has been pointed out is, I think, more easy of explanation. The Père D’Entrecolles, while giving in great detail the method of preparation of the various colours used in the enamels and glazes, does not say a word about the famous crimson derived from gold, so largely used in the famille rose decoration. I cannot but think that this omission is an almost conclusive proof that the rouge d’or was not known at that time.[84] The ignorance of the Chinese of chemical processes is dwelt upon, and it is especially mentioned that they are acquainted with neither aqua fortis nor aqua regia.
CHAPTER X
THE PORCELAIN OF CHINA—(continued).
GORMS and Uses—Description of the various Wares.
WE have now given a summary sketch of the history and development of the porcelain of China, and have seen something of the processes of manufacture and decoration. Incidentally some account has been given of the principal wares.
We now propose to take up the subject from the side of the paste, the glaze, and the decoration, putting aside the question of age and of historical sequence, and to run through the various classes into which we can divide our material under these heads. We shall follow as far as possible the arrangement adopted in the British Museum, passing from the simpler forms of decoration to the more complex.
First, however, let us say a few words on the forms given to porcelain by the Chinese, and the uses these objects are put to in the country of their origin.[85]
In a first glance at any large collection of Chinese porcelain the bulk of the objects shown appear to fall into four classes: plates and dishes, bowls, vases for flowers, and covered jars.[86] But a closer examination discloses an endless variety of other uses to which porcelain has been applied by the Chinese.
The figures of the gods and the vessels associated with their worship found in the temples and household shrines form by themselves a large division. Here the use of porcelain has from a very early period been encouraged at the expense of bronze and other metals. The ritual vessels used in the imperial worship at Pekin have for ages been made of porcelain. Many of them, as the jars for sacrificial wine, in the form of elephants and rhinoceroses, are copied from the most archaic bronze types; of the same origin is the small libation cup of peculiar shape sometimes seen in our collections. The Wu-kung, or five vessels that stand in front of a Buddhist shrine, the incense-burner in the centre, with a candlestick and a vase on either side, are often in China made of porcelain. In Japan these objects are always of metal. A similar set is found in the Taoist temples. The colour of the vessels in ritual use at Pekin varies with the temple in which they are found. Those of the ancestral temple of the emperors are of imperial yellow; those of the altar of heaven of a deep blue (a set of five of this colour, recently brought from Pekin, may be seen at South Kensington). A red glazed ware is connected with the altar of the sun, and white with that of the planet Jupiter.
The objects used in the burning of perfume, the basis doubtless of the highly elaborated apparatus of the Japanese, are usually made of porcelain: these are the incense-burner, the boxes for the perfumes, and the little vase to hold the fire-sticks and the tongs. From these we may pass to the various objects found on the table of the cultured classes, most of them connected with literary pursuits. This is an important division in Chinese collections, as we may judge from the often-quoted manuscript catalogue of Dr. Bushell. The slabs, the water-drippers, and a dozen other small objects are modelled in a variety of forms. The pen-rest is generally in the shape of a small range of mountains, the highest in the centre (this, by the way, is the ancient form of the Chinese character for ‘mountain,’ cf. [Pl. viii].). One of the strangest uses to which porcelain is put by the Chinese is the hat-stand in the form of a hollow sphere supported on a tall, tubular column—the sphere may be filled with either fine charcoal embers or with ice, according to the season.
Pillows, too, are made of porcelain—there is one of the famille verte in the Salting collection—but the native collector is warned against those of a certain size and shape, as they may have been stolen from tombs. Tall vases to contain arrows, either cylindrical or square in section, are especially connected with the Manchus. These large vessels may generally be known by their porcelain stands often surrounded by railings.