Porcelain

by Edward Dillon

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]