Porcelain

by Edward Dillon

But we must not pass over the little glazed cabinet filled with quaint pieces of Chinese porcelain. The contents of this cabinet have, it is said, remained untouched since the day, more than two hundred years ago, when they were arranged by Queen Mary. Among many curious pieces on its shelves may be seen two buffaloes of a pale celadon ware, four vases of ‘hookah-base’ form, with strange-shaped spouts, and some censers in the form of kilins.

The general impression, we may finally say, given by a somewhat close inspection of the porcelain at Hampton Court, confirms the little we know of the date of its origin. It represents a period anterior to the great renaissance at King-te-chen at the end of the seventeenth century, but only just anterior to that time, and it is the absence of the finer and more brilliant wares made subsequently to this renaissance, examples of which we are accustomed to see in our modern collections, that gives a certain air of poverty to this porcelain collected by our ancestors.

In some of the palaces and castles of Germany may still be seen collections of china made in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, crowded together in the porcelain cabinet. Of these the best known, perhaps, is that at the ‘Favorite,’ near Baden, but there are others in the castle of the Waldstein family at Dux in Bohemia, and in Hungary in the castle of Prince Esterhazy. Many of these collections have remained unaltered since the time when they were first brought together, and it is in this fact that their principal interest lies.

These china-cabinets are, of course, all eclipsed by the vast collection brought together, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, by Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and (at intervals) King of Poland. But this collection has undergone many vicissitudes since the time when it was first established in the handsome palace in the Neustadt at Dresden. It escaped, indeed, with little damage from the Prussian cannons during the Seven Years’ War; at the end of the century, however, it was removed to a gloomy basement, but so carelessly was this done that we hear of whole chests packed with broken fragments. In this ill-arranged and dark room the collection remained for nearly a century, until at last it has found a home in the well-lit galleries of the Johanneum. Here it is now seen to full advantage, thanks to an arrangement which combines historical sequence with a regard to general effect.

Augustus the Strong died in 1733, and it is doubtful whether his successor, August ii. (August iii. of Poland), who was above all a collector of pictures, added to the collection.[140] There were, it would seem, some examples of porcelain in the electoral collection at a much earlier date.[141] In an inventory of 1640 several pieces of porcelain are mentioned, and these are said to have been presented by the Herzog von Florentz in the year 1590. Among them (they cannot now be identified) we find a vase of porcelain (ein Pokal von Porcellana), blue and red with gilding, in the form of a crab; another in the form of a dragon, coloured green and blue; a lantern of porcelain, green and gold, adorned at the top with a standing figure; a small ‘pokal,’ gilt and painted with all kinds of colours; and finally some large eight-sided dishes decorated with blue. We should have expected to find some examples of the new Medici porcelain along with these, but in the inventory in question there is no mention of anything of the kind.

Augustus the Strong obtained most of his porcelain from Dutch dealers—a certain Le Roy at Amsterdam is specially mentioned. Already in 1709 we find him lending eight statuettes of white Chinese ware to Böttger, then engaged with his experiments on the Königstein. In the year 1717 he received from the King of Prussia nearly a hundred important vases and dishes. In return for these, it is said, the king obtained a regiment (or company) of tall dragoons, but this part of the bargain is not mentioned in the official receipt for the porcelain, which has been preserved.

I have more than once referred to individual specimens in this famous collection, and I shall not attempt to describe it now. Suffice to say that the general impression given is that it is of a somewhat later date than that at Hampton Court. Apart from a few early pieces which have been already mentioned, and from some specimens of the famille rose (and on these the new rouge d’or is for the most part sparingly and, as it were, tentatively applied), the coloured enamel ware in the Dresden collection belongs in the bulk to the famille verte, and upon intrinsic evidence might be attributed to the later years of Kang-he and to the reign of his successor Yung-ching, say from 1690 to 1730. On the Japanese side, we notice a number of dishes and vases in blue and white, rather in the style of the later Ming ware exported to India and Persia, a few choice specimens of the enamelled ‘Kakiyemon,’ and then the vast series of ‘Old Japan’ or Imari porcelain—plates, vases, and bowls, many of large size. Much of this last class was made to order, and this part reflects the bad taste of the day. We find tall vases ‘adorned’ with figures and flowers modelled in full relief in a kind of stucco and gaudily painted with some oil medium or varnish. Some are converted into cages for birds or squirrels by an external railing of brass rods.

With the exception of a few fine garnitures in blue and white in ‘’t Huis ten Bosch’ at the Hague, there appear to be no public collections in Holland dating from the eighteenth century. But in spite of the repeated razzias of dealers, both native and foreign, many old families still retain collections of Chinese porcelain (of blue and white especially), some of which may date from the latter part of the seventeenth century, and many a rough-looking farmer, in country districts, prides himself on the china-cabinet that he has inherited from his ancestors.

Francis i. of France and his son Henri ii. were, as is well known, great collectors of works of art, and their collections at Fontainebleau may be regarded as the foundation of the national museums of France. The Rev. Père Dan, who described these collections at a later date, in his Trésors des Merveilles de Fontainebleau (1640) says—‘La étoient aussi des vases et vaisselles en porcelaines de la Chine,’ and in an eighteenth century notice we hear of a ‘vase de porcelaine de première qualité ancienne de la Chine,’ which is said to have come from the collection of Sully, the minister of Henri iv. In the second half of the seventeenth century, at the great yearly fairs held in the neighbourhood of Paris, Portuguese travelling merchants set up their stalls for the sale of les besognes de Chine.[142] In 1678 the Duchess of Cleveland’s porcelain was sold at the fair of St. Laurent. The Mercure of the day gives a list of the figures and mounted pieces. Louis xiv., we are told, was surprised at the knowledge of Oriental porcelain shown by James ii.

At the end of the seventeenth century it became the fashion among the grands Seigneurs of the court of Louis xiv. to collect the porcelaine des Indes, the Dauphin and the Duke of Orleans leading the way, and through the agency of the short-lived Compagnie de la Chine[143] (1685-1719) the latter prince was able to obtain from the East vases decorated with his arms,[144] while of the Dauphin we hear that he arranged his collection of blue and white in cabinets constructed by the famous ebonist Boule. Unfortunately the gallery at Versailles where they were placed was burned down soon afterwards (Du Sartel, La Porcelaine de la Chine, p. 121). The porcelain of these princely collectors was sold at a later time, and most of it passed into the hands of the Vicomte de Fonspertuis; it was again dispersed when the works of art in that famous collection were sold by auction in 1747. The catalogue on this occasion was prepared by Gersaint,[145] the great dealer of the day, for whose shop on the Pont Notre-Dame Watteau painted his famous Enseigne. The notes in this catalogue are of some interest, in that they are, perhaps, the earliest attempt, at least from a Western point of view, at a critical description of Oriental porcelain. We can only call attention to the remarks of Gersaint on the new enamel colours, which in opposition to the blue and white ‘on voit seulement depuis quelques années’; on the white ware with its ‘ton velouté, doux et mat,’ which he tells us Spanish collectors prefer to all others, and on the figures, animals, and ornaments which the Dutch ‘souvent mal à propos’ painted over the beautiful white ware of China. Gersaint ridicules also the fashion that will have nothing to say to any piece without the brown line upon the lip or edge, so characteristic of the porcelain imported about this time, and finally he calls attention to the excellent imitation of the ‘Ancien Japon,’ made some time since at Dresden. A few specimens of this Saxon ware are the only examples of European pottery in this extensive and varied collection.