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The cobalt-blue is typical of the finest quality of the period; it has a depth of tone and a limpid brilliancy found only in the reign of K'ang Hsi, compared with which all but the best blue of other periods seems dingy and lustreless. The ground colour is carefully sprayed or splashed on to the vase, and has in consequence on a close inspection a minutely speckled appearance; to this is owing the intense throbbing effect which has often been noticed as the peculiar quality of the blue of this class. This beauty of colour, combined with the faultless spacing of the decoration, compensates for a certain prim formality noticeable when comparison is made with the less orderly designs of the Ming dynasty.

The vase here illustrated is of special interest as exemplifying the use of both kinds of blue; while in the main decoration an enamel blue of greyish tone has been employed, there are also two bands, round the shoulder and base respectively, filled with a diaper pattern in underglaze blue enclosed between ridges in slight relief. The form of the vase is that known as "club-shaped." The scheme of decoration is of a type which became increasingly prevalent as the eighteenth century advanced, and departs entirely from the traditions of earlier times. Instead of a broadly-treated design proportionate to the dimensions of the vase, the surface is divided into a number of panels of diverse size and outline, set against a figured groundwork and filled in with delicate miniature paintings. Two large rectangular panels contain rocky lake-scenes with figures. Smaller panels enclose some of the "Hundred Antiques" already alluded to, while in two circular medallions we see a carp rising from a cataract, beneath a full moon partly hidden among clouds. This latter subject is an allegory of literary success attained by perseverance and industry. The allusion is to the legend according to which the sturgeon of the Hoang Ho river, when they ascend the stream in the third month of the year, are transformed into dragons if they succeed in climbing the rapids of the Lung M?n or Dragon Gate. The green ground of the vase is figured with a close pattern of conventional lotus-flowers amid small scrolled foliage. The whole is exquisitely rendered, and composes such a beautiful harmony of colour as to compel admiration, in spite of the comparative lack of breadth in the treatment of the design.

PLATE 7

Jar, with Cover, Chinese, period of K'ang Hsi , with decoration in panels reserved on a powdered blue ground. Height, 18 in. Orrock Collection.

No. 67-1887. See p. 20.

Unmarked.

The "blue and white" of the time of K'ang Hsi has already been noticed. Beautiful effects were obtained where the cobalt was used in harmonious combination with the other high temperature underglaze pigments, a greyish celadon-green and the soft crimson obtained from copper. Another new type of painted ware dating from this time is that in which the design is entirely carried out in the overglaze iron-red, first seen amongst the pigments of the "five colour" order. The red of the K'ang Hsi period, a pure coral-red of the utmost brilliancy, is generally employed in conventional designs, such as dragons and symbols or lotus-flowers, symmetrically disposed over the whole surface of a vase.

PLATE 12

Toilette-pot and Cover, St. Cloud, about 1700, with ormolu mount of the period. Height, 8 3/4 in. Given by Mr. J. H. Fitzhenry.

No. C 457-1909. See p. 50.

Mark concealed by the mounting.

Perhaps the most famous of the productions of the Yung Ch?ng period are the plates and cups and saucers of thin "egg-shell" china with enamel decoration of figure-subjects or birds and flowers enclosed within elaborate borders of complex diaper. The same fine porcelain was employed as a material for lanterns; fine examples of these are exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

JAPANESE PORCELAIN

The subject of Japanese porcelain can only be briefly discussed here, on the one hand in its relation to the Chinese porcelain of which it may be considered an offshoot, and on the other, from the point of view of its influence on European factories. Though the origin of the art in Japan is obscure, it is certain that the Japanese learned the making of porcelain from their neighbours across the sea. Tradition asserts that one Gorodayiu Go Shonsui visited the Chinese factories in 1510 with this purpose, and on his return established a kiln of short-lived duration for the manufacture in his own country. It is not, however, until the beginning of the following century that sure ground is reached; about that time the necessary materials were discovered in the province of Hizen, in the extreme south-west of the island empire, by a Corean potter named Risanpei, and porcelain kilns were set up by him at ARITA, which remains to the present day one of the chief Japanese centres of the industry.

PLATE 13

Toilette-pot and Cover, Chantilly, about 1735, painted in the style of the Japanese Kakiyemon ware. Silver-gilt mount of the period. Height, 7 in. Given by Mr. J. H. Fitzhenry.

No. C 424-1909. See p. 53.

Mark: a hunting-horn in red.

The baneful influence of contact with the West, already noticed in dealing with Chinese porcelain, did not fail to make itself felt in the work of the Arita potters. From the last quarter of the seventeenth century may be dated the appearance of the ware generally considered in Europe as peculiarly characteristic of Japanese ceramics, but in reality of a type entirely alien from native ideas. Though made at Arita, it is usually called by the name of the neighbouring port of Imari, from which it was exported. The style is embodied in jars and dishes generally of large dimensions, decorated in underglaze blue of muddy tone, with dull red, green, purple and yellow enamels and gilding added at a subsequent firing over the glaze. Their effect is occasionally pleasing and handsome, but in general these objects have a dull and lifeless air that places them among the least interesting of all Oriental wares. This style was sometimes copied both at Meissen and at Chelsea during their earlier stages, and suggested some of the designs of the Worcester factory, but it was not till the first decades of the nineteenth century that it was extensively imitated, when the "Japan patterns" of Derby and the Staffordshire works enjoyed a great popularity; it may fairly be said that in the reduced scale necessitated by their application to table wares, and in the livelier colouring obtainable in the English soft porcelain, these patterns gain an attractiveness wanting in their Oriental forerunners.

Other kilns were founded in the neighbourhood of Arita under the protection of feudal lords, by whose patronage they were secured from the debasing effects of foreign trade. Porcelain began to be made about 1660 at the kilns of OKAWAJI, founded at an earlier date for making earthenware by a chief of the Nabeshima family. Here the methods of painting employed were those of the later Arita potters, but the colours are purer and the decoration, designed to please native tastes, is at once less florid and more spontaneous in character.

Fine porcelain was made in the second half of the eighteenth century at MIKAWAJI, also in the province of Hizen, under the munificent patronage of the feudal lord of Hirato. The wares are of two principal types. The first is painted in blue of a quiet grey tone with designs of exquisite delicacy, inspired by the Chinese "blue and white" of the time of Hs?an T?; and it should be noted that this milder quality of blue was deliberately aimed at by the potters of the best Japanese schools, in preference to the deep sapphire blue attained by the Chinese at their highest period of development. The second class of Mikawaji ware is seen in the skilfully modelled figures of divinities, children, or mythical creatures such as the Corean lion; they are usually enlivened with coloured glazes of three harmonious tones, blue, russet-brown, and black.

PLATE 15

No. 753-1882. See p. 56.

Mark:

The porcelain made in the Nishihama park, near Wakayama in the province of KISHIU, dates only from the earlier years of the nineteenth century, but is of interest as a revival of the early Ming ware with designs in coloured glazes separated by outlines moulded in slight relief; the enamels of the Kishiu kilns produce a wonderful richness of effect, notably where turquoise blue is used in combination with deep violet.

ITALIAN PORCELAIN

PLATE 16

?cuelle, with Cover and Stand, S?vres, dated 1768, with pastoral subjects after Boucher, by Chabry, on a turquoise-blue ground. ?cuelle, height, 4 1/2 in.; stand, diameter, 4 3/4 in. Jones Collection.

No. 758-1882. See p. 57.

Mark:

The mere outward simulation that could be achieved by coating grey earthenware with pure white enamel did not satisfy the keen spirits of an age when every mind was pregnant with new ideas, and no task seemed too gigantic for the artist's hand. To produce a body which, in substance and surface as well, should equal the object of imitation, must have been the aim of many a pioneer in the art of whose efforts all record has been lost.

PLATE 14

No. 787-1882. See p. 56.

Mark:

The last-named class of design is well exemplified by the bottle in Plate 10, one of the four pieces of Medici porcelain belonging to the Victoria and Albert Museum. The subtle shapeliness of the modelling and the ably-distributed painted ornament, in which a slight suggestion of the contemporary Chinese "blue and white" of Wan Li is perceptible, betoken the work of an artist whose conceptions were superior to the material at his disposal for their embodiment.

The Tuscan experiments above recorded were made at an unpropitious time, and were consequently destined to have no lasting effect in the development of European ceramics. Italy was then fast relapsing into the state of torpor which followed as a reaction from her restless activities in the age of the renaissance, and the time had not yet arrived when the influx of Chinese porcelain, resulting from the extension of trade relations with the East, was to spur on the potters and chemists of Europe, aided by royal patronage, to success in their efforts to produce a similar kind of ware. Porcelain is not heard of again in Italy till about 1720, when Francesco Vezzi, a Venetian goldsmith, in co-operation with a deserter from the Saxon royal factory, succeeded for a short time in producing hard porcelain of a type similar to that of Meissen. At a later date another Saxon workman named Hewelcke set up a short-lived factory in VENICE, but no porcelain of importance was produced there till the establishment of the works of Geminiano Cozzi in 1765.

The chief Italian factory was that at DOCCIA near Florence, founded by the Marchese Carlo Ginori in 1735 and still kept up by his descendants. His aim was to compete with the porcelain imported from Saxony, and he succeeded in his efforts without the princely support by which alone in most European countries the manufacture was saved from failure. He obtained the assistance of an expert from the factory at Vienna, Carl Wendelin Anreiter, of whose painted work on porcelain rare specimens are occasionally met with. The earliest Doccia productions showed distinct signs of Meissen influence, as may be seen from a soup-bowl in the Victoria and Albert Museum; this has a basket-work rim of the Meissen type, and is decorated with genre scenes from Italian peasant life in medallions, surrounded by tendrils in red and gold and small panels of lilac colour. Other pieces of the same service bear the mark of a Doccia painter, Pietro Fanciullacci. At a later stage the Ginori works became famous for their large reproductions in white porcelain of antique statues in the Florentine palaces, such as the Crouching Venus and the Apollo Belvedere.

FRENCH PORCELAIN

PLATE 19

No. 781-1882. See p. 59.

Mark:

A ground colour of pure primrose-yellow is sometimes seen in pieces of this early period, borrowed doubtless from Meissen, and foreshadowing the sumptuous coloured grounds of Vincennes and S?vres. This is well exemplified by a large jardini?re with rococo ormolu mounting, also in the Fitzhenry gift. At a later date less distinctive manners were adopted, bouquets of flowers of the Meissen type, cupids in the style of Boucher, and rococo-panelled designs. The manufacture was commercialised and the quality of the wares rapidly deteriorated, but still a good word may be said for the blue festooned borders which are a common feature in Chantilly services, and are an admirable pattern of what designs in table ware should be. An instance is the service made for Louis Philippe, duc d'Orl?ans, for use at his ch?teau of Villers-Cotterets; a plate from this set is in the Kensington collection.

The works at SCEAUX, dating back apparently to 1749, are noteworthy for the skilfulness of their flower-paintings; the tints are brilliant yet harmonious, while the drawing is executed with remarkable care and sureness of touch.

From the outset the wares were given a high artistic quality. Duplessis, goldsmith to the king, was charged in 1747 with the control of the modellers; he kept the workshops under close personal supervision, and to his guiding influence is attributable the originality and unfailing taste of the shapes adopted. Hellot, director of the Academy of Sciences, was in charge of the chemical composition of the materials, while Bachelier was at the head of the painters and gilders. Drawings of figure-subjects were supplied by Fran?ois Boucher for the painted decoration, as well as for translation into the round by the modellers; an instance of the latter process is the fine biscuit group of Leda modelled from Boucher's design by Fernex, a painted version of the same subject being in the National Museum at Stockholm.

PLATE 20

Vase, with Cover, Meissen, Marcolini period, about 1780. Height, 11-7/8 in. Jones Collection.

No. 837-1882. See p. 68.

Mark

PLATE 25

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