Chapter XXIII: Contemporary European Porcelain (2)

Transfer-printing at Bow, 347

---- at Worcester, 360

‘Transmutation’ glazes on Chinese porcelain, 66, 150-154, 151 _note_

_Trembleuse_ saucers, 283, 294

Trenchard family, early pieces of Chinese porcelain in possession of, 219

Triads of colour--San-tsai, 89, 97

Trou, Henri, at Saint-Cloud, 283

Tsang Ying-hsuan, superintendent at King-te-chen, 96

Tschirnhaus, glass made by, 246-247, 278

---- his connection with Böttger, 246-247, 248

Tsing or Manchu dynasty, 96

Tung, the potter’s god, 113

Tung-chi (1861-74), porcelain of, 115

Tu Ting ware, term explained, 68

Turks use coffee-cups of Oriental porcelain, 224

Turner, Thomas, at Caughley, 365

Turquoise glaze on Chinese porcelain, 97, 147

---- grounds (opaque)--_fei-tsui_--on Chinese porcelain, 110-111

---- ---- on Sèvres porcelain, 299

---- ---- on Chelsea porcelain, 339

_Tu-ting_, 142

Tzu-ching, writer of Bushell MS., 61, 79, 86

_Tzu-kin_ (burnished gold), Chinese name for _fond laque_, 146

Unaker, kaolin from America, 342, 376, 378

Uranium, black enamel from, 261

Uses of Chinese porcelain, 137-141

---- of Japanese porcelain, 192

Venice, Chinese porcelain in St. Mark’s, 77 _note_

---- early attempts to make porcelain in, 235

---- Oriental porcelain abundant in seventeenth century, 235 _note_

---- porcelain made at, 316-318

---- German influence on porcelain, 317

Vernadsky, on chemical reaction in firing porcelain, 11

Vezzi family at Venice, 316

Vienna, origin of porcelain works, 260

---- porcelain, decoration, 260

---- ---- marks on, 260

Villeroy, Duc de, and Mennecy, 287

Vincennes, porcelain made at, 289-291, 293-295

---- _bleu du roi_, 294

---- early perfection of porcelain, 295

Vinovo, or Vineuf, porcelain factory at, 318

_Vissage_ or wreathing, 22, 106 _note_, 384

Vogt, M., of Sèvres, quoted, 17, 278

Wall, Dr. John, at Worcester, 357, 363

Walpole, Horace, porcelain from Doccia, 321

Wan-li (1572-1619), his present of porcelain to Jehangir, 85

---- porcelain of, 95

Warham, Archbishop, celadon bowl at Oxford, 218

‘Wasters,’ importance of discovery of, 29

Watteau, influence on German art, 253

Wedgwood, his Jasper ware, 40

---- at Meissen, 256

---- and fugitive workmen, 381 _note_

---- his opposition to Champion, 383

Weesp, in Holland, porcelain made at, 272

White Chinese porcelain, two families of, 68

Willow pattern at Caughley, 365

Worcester porcelain, 357-364

---- ---- foundation of factory, 357

---- ---- composition of pastes, 358

---- ---- the factory described, 358

---- ---- Oriental wares copied, 359

---- ---- portraits of celebrities, 360, 364

---- ---- marks on, 360, 364

---- ---- transfer-printing, 360-361

---- ---- migration of painters from Chelsea, 361

---- ---- _bleu du roi_ grounds, 361-362

---- ---- decorated in London, 362-363

---- ---- the Chamberlain factory, 363

---- ---- late developments, 364

‘Wreathing’ or _vissage_, 22, 106 _note_, 384

_Wu-kung_, five vessels on Buddhist shrine, 138

_Wu-shê_ (_see_ Garniture), 139

Wu-tsai, the ‘five colours’ of Ming enamels, 89

---- relation to _famille verte_, 101

_Yang-tsai_, ‘foreign colours,’ associated with Indian enamels, 165

_Yao-pien_, or furnace transmutation, 152

_Yao-ping_, or medicine-flasks, 113, 140

Yeiraku ware, 198-199

Yeisen, potter at Kioto, 197

Yellow glazes on Chinese porcelain, 94, 147

Yi-hsing yao, stoneware, 165

Yuan or Mongol dynasty, 72

---- ---- porcelain of, 77, 152

Yung-cheng (1722-35), porcelain of, 103-105

---- copies of old wares, 104

---- his early interest in porcelain, 135

Yung-lo (1402-24), early date-mark, 67

---- porcelain of, 68, 91

Zaitun, 142, 209, 213

Zanzibar, Chinese porcelain found at, 211

Zengoro, family of Japanese potters, 198

---- his coral red, his Yeiraku seal, 198-199

---- his Kairaku ware in Kishiu, 200

---- Hozen at Kutani, 205

Zurich, porcelain made at, 270

Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Some English porcelain is stated by Professor Church to have a hardness equal to that of quartz. See below, ‘Bristol Porcelain.’

[2] We have thought it well, once for all, to treat briefly of the scientific aspect of our subject, but those who are not interested in this point of view may pass over the next few pages.

[3] I shall return to this point in a later chapter. I lay the more stress on this fact, as it is often stated that the hard and slightly translucent stonewares, such as the Fulham ware of Dwight, which contains as much as eighty per cent. of silica, form one degree of a series of which true porcelain is the next term. The fact is, those who sought to make porcelain by a refinement in the manufacture of stoneware were as much astray as those who started from a fusible glass frit.

[4] The china-stone of Cornwall might, in part at least, be claimed as an old volcanic rock, and that used in the Imari district of Japan is distinctly of volcanic origin. Both these rocks, however, consist essentially of a mixture of quartz and felspar.

[5] For further details consult the authorities quoted in the _Handbook_ of the Jermyn Street Collection, p. 5; for sections showing the relation of the beds of kaolin to the surrounding rock, see Brongniart’s _Traité des Arts Céramiques_, vol. i.

[6] It is to the scattered notices and essays of Mr. William Burton that we must go for information in this country. In his new work on _English Porcelain_ he does not treat upon this side of the subject.

[7] The most complete work on the processes of manufacture is now Dubreuil’s _La Porcelaine_, Paris, 1885. It forms part forty-two in Fremy’s _Encyclopédie Chimique_. This volume brings up to date and replaces in some measure the great work of Alexandre Brongniart, the _Traité des Arts Céramiques_ (two volumes, with a quarto volume of plates), Paris, 1844. M. Georges Vogt in _La Porcelaine_, Paris, 1893, gives valuable details of the processes employed at Sèvres.

[8] The _cailloux_ of the French. This material is often described as felspar, but I think that quartz can seldom be completely absent.

[9] I should, however, be inclined to class not only much of the porcelain of Japan, but some of that made in Germany and in south-west France, rather in the ‘severe’ kaolinic than in the intermediary class of M. Vogt.

[10] We can, however, distinguish, in the tomb paintings of the Middle Empire, an earlier form without the lower table. This earlier type, moved by hand from the upper table, was that used by the Greeks at least as late as the sixth century B.C., and a similar primitive wheel is still used in India. On later Egyptian monuments of Ptolemaic time, the potter is seen moving the wheel by pressing his foot on a second lower table, as now at Sèvres and elsewhere. Both forms of wheel appear to have been used by the Italian potters of the Renaissance.

[11] This seam is often visible on vases of old Chinese porcelain, and may be taken as a sign that the object has been moulded.

[12] Porcelain in China followed, as we shall see, in the wake of the more early developed arts of the bronze-caster and the jade-carver. Hence the prevalence in the early wares of shapes unsuitable to the wheel.

[13] I think that this is a more practical division than the one made by M. Vogt and adopted by Dr. Bushell.

[14] An important exception is to be noted in the case of the firing of large vases in China.

[15] A good instance of the first case is the finding of crow-claws in the rubbish-heaps of Fostât or Old Cairo. As to the method of support indicating the place of origin, see what is said below about the celadon ware of Siam.

[16] There is only one exception of any importance--the porcelain of Chantilly, much of which has an opaque stanniferous glaze.

[17] So we can infer from the magnificent wall decoration of the Achæmenian period brought home from Susa by M. Dieulafoi.

[18] A glaze of this nature was in the Saracenic East applied to a layer of fine white slip, which itself formed a coating on the coarse paste. Such a combination, often very difficult to distinguish from a tin enamel, we find on the wall-tiles of Persia and Damascus.

[19] Metallic gold has, of course, been applied to the decoration of porcelain in all countries.

[20] The colour of the ruby glass in our thirteenth century windows has a very similar origin. In this case the art was lost and only in a measure recovered at a later period. As in the case of the Chinese glaze, the point was to seize the moment when the copper was first reduced and, in a minute state of division, was suspended in floccular masses in the glass.

[21] With these colours a dark blue is sometimes associated. Is this derived like the turquoise from copper? It is a curious fact that we have here exactly the same range of colours that we find in the little glass bottles of Phœnician or Egyptian origin, with zig-zag patterns (1500-400 B.C.).

[22] See Vogt, _La Porcelaine_, p. 219. The problem is really more complicated. For simplicity’s sake we have ignored the changes that take place in the glaze that lies between the enamels and the paste.

[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.

[53] The Trenchard bowls, mentioned below, belong probably to this or to the following reign.

[54] But this name is also applied by some to the older Su-ma-li blue.

[55] Perhaps the earliest nien-hao on a piece of blue and white in which we can place any confidence.

[56] A predecessor of his as viceroy and superintendent at King-te-chen was _Lang Ting-tso_, from whom the famous Lang yao, the _sang de bœuf_, had its name, though this derivation is not absolutely certain. It could only have been quite in the last days of the latter viceroy’s rule that much good work was turned out from the kilns.

[57] It will be observed that the turquoise blue and the green, both derived from copper, so happily combined in the wall-tiles of the Saracenic East, are in China rarely found united in the decoration of the same piece, and this arises from practical difficulties connected with the fluxes and the firing. At least the two colours are never _successfully_ combined, for the attempt was apparently made in Ming times, and of this some instances are given in the following note. Indeed I should be inclined to regard such a combination on any piece as an evidence of early, probably of Ming, origin.

[58] I would especially point to a remarkable water-vessel, about ten inches high, in the collection at Dresden. This vase is in the form of a phœnix. _Green_, as well as _turquoise_, purple and yellow are all found in the decoration, and the colours are all well developed. There is in the British Museum--a collection in many ways remarkable for the number of exceptional types illustrated--a jar with cover, of this class. The ground is a dull purple covered with small spirals of black; the rest of the decoration--rocks, waves, flowers, and jewels--is mainly green of two shades with a little yellow. On some of the flowers, however, we see a poor attempt at turquoise blue. Next to this example stands a baluster-shaped vase with tall, straight neck (PL. VII. 2.). The ground is here of a pale greyish yellow, with crackles of a darker shade--so far, in fact, of a Ko yao type. The decoration is of a predominant leafy green, with a little purple and yellow here and there; but on the flowers we find, in addition, an enamel of turquoise, poor in colour, indeed, but certainly a copper blue. Both these examples are classed as Ming, and both would seem to show that the combination of the turquoise enamel (essentially a silicate of copper and soda) with the lead-fluxed green had been attempted in Ming times. It was, however, impossible to obtain satisfactory results in this way, so that in Kang-he’s time the turquoise was reserved for the _demi grand feu_, and the green alone used as an enamel over the glaze.

[59] ‘Muffle-colours,’ of course in these later examples painted over the glaze, and therefore to be classed as enamels.

[60] In this respect we may compare such decoration to a dark water-colour drawing on white paper, where advantage is only taken of the white ground for scattered lights here and there.

[61] We must always think of this great man in connection with his contemporary in France, Louis XIV. Omitting the early years of the French king, before he attained his majority, the two long reigns run almost exactly together.

[62] This list is to be found in Julien’s book. Dr. Bushell has since given a more accurate translation, accompanied by a careful analysis (_Chinese Ceramics_, chapter xii.).

[63] The red paste of early times was, however, imitated, and a ‘copper paste’ is also mentioned in connection with these old wares. The last expression is obscure, but it has certainly nothing to do with an enamel on copper.

[64] On the other hand, on some large showy vases of this time we can trace a series of rings, giving an uneven surface. These are caused either by the undue pressure of the potter’s fingers (_vissage_), or perhaps in part by the way in which the successive stages of the jar were built up with ‘sausage-shaped’ rolls of clay.

[65] How this iron red was manipulated, apparently at a transition period, so as to obtain an effect approaching that of the _rouge d’or_, is described on page 162.

[66] A ruby-red can be obtained by careful manipulation from gold alone. We may regard the addition of tin as a convenient method of developing the colour which was apparently known to the mediæval alchemists.

[67] It would be a point of special interest to determine the date when these two colours--the pink (used as a ground) and the opaque turquoise blue--were first used in China. Their presence together with the lemon-yellow gives perhaps the first note of a period of decline. There is in the British Museum a bowl and saucer covered on the outside with this rose enamel and bearing this unusual inscription--‘the _Sin-chou_ year occurring again.’ This expression was referred by Franks to the sixty-first year of the reign of Kang-he, when the cyclical year in which his reign began recurred again, an unprecedented fact in Chinese history. In the same collection is a saucer-shaped plate with a pale pink ground with the mark of the period Yung-cheng. But the evidence in favour of a somewhat later date for the fully developed use of the _rouge d’or_ seems to me fairly strong. Dr. Bushell, however, tells me that he has seen other examples where the same inscription is found upon ware decorated with the _rouge d’or_, and that he accepts the early date (1722) on the Sin-chou plate. I return to this question on page 136.

[68] Julien omitted this curious passage in his translation as devoid of interest!

[69] There are two magnificent vases of the black lacquered ware, each about eight feet high, in the Musée Guimet, and of the brown variety a well-preserved spherical bowl may be seen at South Kensington.

[70] The snuff-bottles of the Chinese represent the _inro_ of the Japanese. Both were originally used for pills and for eye medicine.

[71] Dr. Bushell tells us that she is an accomplished artist and calligraphist, and that her autograph signature is much valued. She is said to have sent down from the palace, to be copied at King-te-chen, bowls and dishes of the time of Kien-lung, just as that emperor in his day forwarded from Pekin examples of Sung and Ming wares with the same object. So the old tradition is kept up!

[72] These references are to the plates of marks at the end of the book.

[73] See, however, p. 110 note, for a curious instance of its use.

[74] A good example of a date-mark of Wan-li in this position may be seen on the vase reproduced on PL. VII. Fig. 2.

[75] Why, by the way, do we find, in catalogues otherwise well edited, porcelain ascribed to the Kang-he _dynasty_? One might as well speak of the Louis XIV. dynasty.

[76] At least such was the case when the Canal was in working order. For some time since, the Grand Canal has only been navigable _when the country is flooded_.

[77] I cannot find the exact date of the first publication of these letters. In the eighteenth century we find them generally quoted from Du Halde.

[78] This is a passage made use of by Longfellow in those often-quoted lines beginning--

‘A burning town, or seeming so,
Three thousand furnaces that glow,’ etc.

[79] If we are to understand by this ‘transparent pebble’ some form of arsenic, for it would seem that arsenic (and not tin as with us) is the base of the opaque white enamels of the Chinese, it is difficult to believe that so volatile a substance could be thus prepared.

[80] For the use of steatite in English porcelain see chap. xxii. At Vinovo, in Piedmont, another magnesian mineral has been employed for the paste.

[81] In the following summary I have kept to the Père D’Entrecolles’s words as far as possible, but with considerable abbreviations.

[82] We must here think of the more sober _famille verte_ lantern at South Kensington, rather than of the magnificent specimen of pierced work in the Salting collection, which is of later date.

[83] The unique bowl of Chinese porcelain illustrated in Du Sartel’s book, of which the outside is decorated in black and gold in imitation of the Limoges enamel of the renaissance, may have had some such origin. This piece, on which even the initials of the original French artist have been copied, was formerly in the Marquis collection, and is now to be seen in the Grandidier Gallery at the Louvre.

[84] We have already alluded to this point, _à propos_ of a bowl in the British Museum; see p. 110 note.

[85] This branch of the subject is fully worked out in chapter xvii. of Dr. Bushell’s work.

[86] When compared with a similar collection of European wares, perhaps the most noticeable difference is the small number of vessels adapted to _pouring_. So much is this the case that when we find a spout or lip on a specimen of Chinese porcelain, the piece takes at once a somewhat exotic aspect, and we are reminded of the Arab _Ibraik_, or the European ewer.

[87] It is a curious fact that London chemists now send out their pills in little glass bottles almost identical in shape and size with these Chinese yao-ping.

[88] The word is used in a restricted sense as explained above.

[89] We have far too often to fall back on names of French origin. Our colour-vocabulary in the case of the enamels and glazes of porcelain is a sadly poor one.

[90] In the case of some monochrome ware the colour may have been painted on the raw paste or on the biscuit, and a colourless glaze then added; or again, as in the case of the coral red mentioned below, it may be painted like an enamel _over_ the glaze.

[91] It must, however, be remembered that this carved lacquer itself is sometimes applied as a coating to porcelain in China.

[92] It would be convenient to have a name to include the whole series--the _flambé_, the _sang de bœuf_, the lavender Yuan, and perhaps also the peach-bloom and the ‘robin’s egg.’ I would propose to include _all these classes_ under the head of _transmutation glazes_.

[93] A French writer compares the effect to the ‘palette d’un coloriste montrée sous un morceau de glace’ (E. de Goncourt, _La Maison d’un Artiste_).

[94] There were many kinds of ‘furnace transmutations’ known to the Chinese, mostly of a miraculous nature (see Bushell, p. 219).

[95] When applied to _the whole surface_, a similar slip forms the ground on which the decoration is painted in the case of many kinds of European and Saracenic fayence, but in such ware the slip is used to conceal a more or less coarse and coloured paste.

[96] It may, however, be noticed, on close examination, that the crackles do not seem to be developed in the lower glaze covered by the slip. This would rather point to both the first and the second coats of glaze, as well as the intermediate slip, being all applied before the firing.

[97] Not that we need claim any great age for these plates, but it is in such places that old types (as _e.g._ the celadon) are likely to continue in fashion.

[98] We may perhaps connect the first steady export of ‘blue and white’ direct to Europe with the establishment of the Dutch at Nagasaki, where they probably employed Chinese workmen.

[99] So what is by far the most successful imitation of Chinese ‘blue and white’ ever produced in Europe was made by the Dutch, in the enamelled fayence of Delft, about the middle of the century.

[100] In Japanese art also we find the prunus as a symbol of the approaching spring, but there the branches are covered with freshly fallen snow. The contrast of the weather in early spring, in China and Japan respectively, could not be better expressed--by ice in the one case, by soft thawing snow in the other.

[101] Dr. Zimmermann, the curator of the Dresden Museum, regards the black division of the _famille verte_ as a product of the _demi grand feu_, _i.e._ he holds that the black and green was painted on the biscuit. But this is certainly not the case with the fully developed examples. I may say that this class is only represented at Dresden by some small roughly painted plates.

[102] We find it so used, however, upon the Japanese ‘Kakiyemon’ porcelain, some of which cannot be much later than the middle of the seventeenth century.

[103] Since writing this I have discovered a tall-necked bottle of this ware at South Kensington, which is stated to have been purchased in Persia (PL. XX.).

[104] That is to say, no attempt was ever made to imitate the material--the hard paste.

[105] An important collection of armorial china was bequeathed to the Museum in 1887 by the Rev. Charles Walker.

[106] This plate belongs to a group in which the arms, above all the mantlings, are in the style of the seventeenth century. On these the _gules_ is always rendered by an opaque iron-red, although the new _rouge d’or_ is freely used in the rest of the decoration. I learn from my friend Colonel Croft Lyons that the arms on this plate are those of Leake Okeover, who was born in 1701. The initials, repeated four times on the margin, L. M. O., stand for Leake and his wife Mary. The plate, therefore, cannot well have been painted before, say, 1725.

[107] This class of Kuang yao must not be confused with the old heavy pieces of Yuan ware mentioned on p. 77.

[108] I quote, with a few contractions, from the edition of 1774.

[109] I have examined the Korean pottery in the British Museum, at Sèvres, and that in some of the German museums, but I have not seen the specimens in the Ethnographical Museum at Hamburg, which are said to be very remarkable.

[110] For an account of the exploration of Sawankalok, see _Man_, the volume for 1901. By the kind permission of Mr. Read I have been able to closely examine the specimens which are now deposited in the British Museum.

[111] We may mention that the Japanese appear also to give the name of Kochi to other wares, especially to the deep blue and turquoise porcelain with decoration in ribbed cloisons which we have attributed to early Ming times.

[112] We may compare with this the impulse given, some four hundred years later, in Europe, to the spread of the use of porcelain at the time when tea was first introduced in the West.

[113] See page 66. This Sung ware is known to the Japanese as ‘_Temmoku_,’ and is highly esteemed by them.

[114] Many, however, of these so-called Jesuit plates were probably painted at King-te-chen at a later date. Christianity was finally and ruthlessly crushed in Japan after the rebellion of 1637: in China it was tolerated up to the close of the reign of Kang-he (1721). I must refer back to a quotation from the Père D’Entrecolles given on p. 133. See also a curious note in Marryat, where a statuette of Quanyin, with the boy patron of learning, is described as ‘a Virgin and Child.’--_Pottery and Porcelain_, p. 293.

[115] In the Dresden collection are several cases full of this early Japanese blue and white.

[116] The Chinese, however, were given much greater liberty than the Dutch.

[117] See the South Kensington handbook on Japanese pottery, p. 86. In the chapter on Japanese ceramics contained in the magnificently illustrated _History of the Arts of Japan_, published in 1901 in connection with the Paris Exhibition, a little further light is thrown on the history of porcelain in that country. But in this work and in the other guides published at the time of our American and European exhibitions (and the same may be said of the Japanese report contained in the South Kensington handbook), the same scanty materials are served up again and again.

[118] _Ambassades Mémorables de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales des Provinces Unies vers les Empereurs du Japon_, Amsterdam, 1680, Part II. p. 102. I take the reference from Marryat, but I have not been able to find the book.

[119] We know of no Chinese type to which we can refer this decoration. Certain points of resemblance have been found with the work of the great contemporary Japanese artist Tanyu. The most characteristic _motifs_ are the tiger, the dancing boy with long sleeves, and the straw hedge.

[120] The ‘old Japan’ was at one time closely copied at King-te-chen for exportation to Europe. (_Cf._ PL. XXIV. 1.)

[121] The composition of the Owari porcelain is more normal, the silica only amounting to 65 per cent.; but as the paste contains little or no lime, it comes nearer to the hard porcelain of Berlin than to the milder Chinese type.

[122] Much, however, of the china-stone of Cornwall differs little in composition from the Imari stone; but the latter contains, as we have said, soda, in place of the more usual potash.

[123] It is to this _Koransha_, I understand, that we are indebted for the historical notices on Japanese porcelain that have appeared on the occasion of our successive international exhibitions (see above, p. 183 note).

[124] Captain Brinkley speaks of the lower edge being serrated, but I have never seen any specimen of this serration.

[125] Another seal was granted to Zengoro with the inscription (reading in Chinese) _Hopin chi liu_ (PL. B. 24). This refers to an old tradition that Shun, a Chinese emperor of very early date, had, before his accession to the throne, made pottery at a place called Hopin, in Honan. This story is told by Ssuma Chien, the ‘Herodotus of China,’ and would be well known to scholars in Japan. These characters are sometimes found on Japanese ware. (_Cf._ Bushell, chap. i., and the Franks catalogue, fig. 191, where, however, the words are wrongly interpreted.) Yeiraku, I should add, may be also rendered ‘long content.’

[126] This question of the relation between the Kishiu, the Kochi of the Japanese, and our class of old Ming wares with coloured glazes, is full of difficulties. It remains for some Japanese connoisseur, who is at the same time both an expert in ceramics and a good Chinese scholar, to clear it up.

[127] This work is analysed by Dr. Hirth in his essay on _Ancient Chinese Porcelain_ already referred to.

[128] Dr. Meyer, who brought this collection together, has always supported the theory that in early days no true porcelain was ever made except in China. In support of this he points to the specimens, including ‘wasters,’ from Sawankalok in Siam, in this collection, as being all of stoneware. We have seen (p. 173) that more recent excavations in the same neighbourhood have brought to light fragments of true porcelain of undoubted local manufacture. It is true, however, that most of the examples of celadon in the Dresden collection are of what we should call a kaolinic stoneware.

[129] I suppose that Franks, who refers to this notice, was satisfied that the present really consisted of Chinese ware. Many slips have been made in quoting this passage, but I will only point out that Nureddin, who died in 1173, has no claim to the title of caliph.

[130] This belief, however, long lingered not only in the East, but even in Europe. According to some, if poison was present, the bowl lost its transparency; others state that the liquid would boil up in the centre, remaining clear round the edge. In a French comic poem, written as late as 1716, among other merits possessed by vessels of Chinese porcelain, it is claimed for them that--

‘Ils font connaître les mystères
Des bouillons à la Brinvillière.’

[131] By far the greater number of the fragments are of local or at least of Saracenic origin, and many of them may be as old as the date mentioned in the text. But at Fostât, at all events, some of the pot-sherds are of a much later date. There are important collections of fragments from these rubbish-heaps both in the British Museum and at South Kensington.

[132] Professor Karabacek of Vienna quotes from the encyclopædist Hâdji Khalifa, who died in 1658: ‘The precious magnificent celadon dishes seen in his time were manufactured and exported at Martabani, in Pegu.’

[133] The little bowl of apple-green porcelain in the British Museum, ‘garnished’ with a mounting of the time of Henry VIII., has perhaps as long a European history. The two ‘Trenchard’ bowls (in spite of the later date of the mounting) probably came to England in 1506.

[134] I think that it is not unlikely that during the time that King-te-chen lay waste, kilns may have been erected somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Canton river, and that from these kilns originated much of the rough ware, hastily decorated in blue, that reached India and Persia in such quantities at this time (_cf._ the statement of Raynal quoted on p. 166). We have spoken in the last chapter of the influence of these events upon the Japanese trade.

[135] I am referring, of course, to Stuart times. In the eighteenth century the so-called Gombroon ware was of Persian origin, and recognised as such in England.

[136] The word ‘china’ is used in this sense, I think, by no other European nation.

[137] See, however, for the Portuguese merchants who sold porcelain in France, the note on page 230.

[138] The Abbé Raynal, writing about 1770, says that connoisseurs divide Oriental porcelain into six classes--‘_truitée_, _vieille blanche_, _de Japon_, _de Chine_, _le Japon Chiné et la porcelaine des Indes_.’

[139] Marryat’s extracts are unfortunately often carelessly quoted; nor is it easy in all cases to control them by reference to the originals.

[140] August II. certainly bought a collection of porcelain from the Bassetouche family for 6750 thalers. It would be interesting to know of what wares this collection consisted. The only further additions until quite recent times have been to the European department.

[141] The tradition of the ‘dinner-service’ made in China for Charles V., and presented by him to Moritz of Saxony (or, as others say, captured from him by that prince), belongs to the same category of stories as that of the crusader’s cup. No such commission as this was possible at so early a date, and there is nothing in the Dresden collection that could be connected with such a service.

[142]

‘Menez-moi chez les Portugais
Nous y verrons à peu de frais
Des marchandises de la Chine
... de la porcelaine fine,’ etc.--Scarron, _Paris Burlesque_.

[143] In 1689 Madame de Sévigné notes the quantity of Oriental porcelain imported at L’Orient.

[144] Are we to identify these with some huge Imari vases, now in the Louvre, with coats of arms bearing the French lilies and the label of Orleans? Some similar vases, with the same arms, have lately been seen in dealers’ shops in London.

[145] The catalogues of Gersaint and of some other early French collections may be found at South Kensington.

[146] Passeri, writing in 1752 in favour of the then neglected majolica, claims that ‘la parte brutale dell’ uomo sarà a favor delle porcellane, ma l’intellettuale e raziocinativa giudicherà a favor delle nostre majoliche.’

[147] Recent researches in the archives of Venice have proved that Oriental porcelain was comparatively abundant in Venice at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Dr. Ludwig has shown me extracts from the inventory of the property of a rich ‘cittadino’ who died in 1526, in which can be distinguished plain white, blue and white, and porcelain decorated with red, green, and gold.

[148] It is quite possible that Palissy may have tried his hand at this problem. M. Solon has suggested that in the many years’ labour at Saintes (when attempting especially to imitate ‘the cup with white enamel’) Palissy was really seeking to make porcelain.

[149] I take the following from the excellent catalogue of the Ceramic Museum at Limoges, by E. Garnier: ‘1125. _Pot à Pommade, de forme cylindrique godronné à la partie inférieure et décoré en bleu d’une bande de lambrequins. Marque_ A.P.’ Some other small pieces in this museum are classed as Rouen porcelain.

[150] Professor Church allows that ‘the substance of some of these statuettes is distinctly porcellanous.’ He found, however, in a fragment of this ware as much as 79·5 per cent. of silica, and only 12·5 per cent. of alumina (_Cantor Lectures_, 1881).

[151] This feeling is well expressed in a contemporary drinking-song:--

‘To drink is a Christian diversion
Unfit for your Turk or your Persian;
Let Mohammedan fools live by heathenish rules,
And get drunk over tea-cups and coffee,
But let British lads sing, give a rouse for the king,
A fig for your Turk and your Sophi.’

The punch-bowl of porcelain, however, came to the rescue about this time.

[152] In the porcelain gallery at Dresden may be seen (together with one or two small lumps of gold and silver, the results of Böttger’s alchemistic experiments) some snuff-boxes and little flasks of a marbled glass, made by Tschirnhaus at an early date. It is probable that the latter experimenter’s researches lay rather in the way of a frit-made soft paste, on the same lines as the contemporary attempts in France.

[153] And yet, forty years later (so well was the secret kept), it was maintained by practical authorities in France that the Saxon ware was no true porcelain, but only some kind of hard enamel. See Hellot’s _Mémoire_, quoted below.

[154] We hear, however, of Dutch potters being engaged as early as 1708, and with their assistance Böttger, in 1709, made some imitations of Delft ware.

[155] In a contemporary German pamphlet, which I only know from a French translation (_Secret des Vrais Porcelaines de la Chine et de Saxe_, Paris, 1752), a certain ‘_spath alkalin_’ is mentioned as an important element in Saxon porcelain, and this substance is identified with the petuntse of the Père D’Entrecolles.

[156] If this colour is derived from the purple of Cassius, as seems probable, it is an important instance of the early use of this pigment upon porcelain.

[157] Above all the famous ‘Swan Service’ of 1736, Kändler’s masterpiece.

[158] We had in England until lately an unrivalled collection of these little groups--priceless specimens of the best period. They were exhibited by their owner, Mr. Massey Mainwaring, for some time at Bethnal Green. This collection has, however, now found its way to America.

[159] On the other hand, as early as 1732 the Meissen ware was finding its way to the East. Quantities of little coffee-cups (known as _Türken Copjen_, corrupted into _Türken Köpfchen_) were sent to Constantinople to be re-exported to other Mohammedan countries.

[160] We may remind the reader that it was a syndicate of Berlin merchants who at an earlier date sought, it is said, to purchase from Böttger his secret. There is little doubt, however, that the anecdotes about Ringler, which abound in the notices on German porcelain, are little more than ‘porcelain myths.’ Very similar anecdotes are told of the early days at Vincennes, and in Japan, as we have seen, such stories sometimes take a more tragical form. There is a strong temptation, no doubt, in traversing the somewhat arid ground of German ceramics, to fall back on such tales. At all events they belong to the class of _tendenz Mährchen_, and illustrate the difficulties to be overcome at that time in starting a new factory.

[161] Not but that we have proof of his interest in the subject, as the following letter, dated Meissen, March 28, 1761, will show. It is written to Madame Camas, his _chère Maman_, who was then with the queen at Magdeburg:--‘I send you, my dear mamma, a little trifle, by way of keepsake and memento. You may use the box for your rouge, for your patches, or you may put snuff in it or bonbons or pills.... I have ordered porcelain for all the world, for Schönhausen, for my sisters-in-law,--in fact I am rich in this brittle material only. And I hope the receivers will accept it as current money: for the truth is, we are poor as can be, good mamma. I have nothing left but my honour, my coat, my sword, and my porcelain.’--Carlyle’s _Frederick the Great_, Book xx. chap. vi. Marryat, who gives this letter in his notes, mixes up Carlyle’s comments with the text.

[162] The Hohenzollern shield bears two sceptres in saltire _en surtout_.

[163] Another account gives the credit to Von Löwenfinck, a porcelain painter from Meissen.

[164] Politically, that is to say; for the town formed part of the ‘Pays d’Étrangers,’ and its commercial and social relations were still rather with Germany than with France.

[165] I take these facts about the Hannong family from Sir A. Wollaston Franks’s _Catalogue of Continental Porcelain_, 1896.

[166] In the same year we find Count Schimmelmann, who at a later date interested himself in the Copenhagen factory, selling by auction at Hamburg some of the vast stocks of Meissen china that Frederick had thrown on the market.

[167] As a royal factory, however, it became extinct in 1864. See chap. xxiii.

[168] Thus we have, during the Seven Years’ War, Frederick’s three bitter opponents--Maria Theresa in Austria, Elizabeth in Russia, and the Marquise de Pompadour in France--all taking an active interest in promoting the manufacture of porcelain, and this rivalry may have added to the zest of Frederick when he looted Meissen and sought to make Berlin take its place as the metropolis of porcelain.

[169] An American writer has arranged the tests by which soft pastes may be distinguished from true porcelains under six heads. 1. _The file test._--Soft porcelain may be marked by a file. 2. _The foot test._--In hard porcelain the foot is generally rough and unglazed. This test is rather of value in distinguishing porcelain from fayence. 3. _The fire test._--Depending on the greater fusibility of the soft pastes. 4. _Chemical test._ 5. _Colour test._--Soft paste is generally mellow ivory by transmitted light, and this is especially true of ‘bone-ware.’ The hard paste tends to bluish shades. 6. _Fracture test._--The fracture is glassy to vitreous, and the glaze passes into the paste in the case of hard pastes (the subconchoidal splintery fracture is rather the point to observe); dry and chalky, and the glaze more or less separated from the paste in the case of soft pastes.--E. A. Barber, _Pottery and Porcelain of the United States_, New York, 1901.

[170] De Réaumur, we must remember, had made some kind of hard-paste porcelain from Chinese materials. After that he fell back upon his devitrified glass. Something very similar had been made by Tschirnhaus many years before.

[171] These, I think, are almost the only instances in which a distinctly seventeenth century decoration is to be found on porcelain.

[172] These _trembleuse_ saucers of the early eighteenth century have a projecting ring into which the base of the teacup fits.

[173] The extreme limits for this mark are 1712-62, but Chaffers says it was not used before 1730, according to another authority not before 1735. De Frasnay, in a note to his curious little poem in praise of fayence (1735), says: ‘_le secret du beau rouge n’est guère connu en France que d’un très petit nombre de personnes_.’ The point is of interest in connection with the origin of the _famille rose_ in China. We may here note that the minute quantity of gold--the source of all these pink and purple colours--is not necessarily introduced in the form of the tin salt, the purple of Cassius. But this difficult question will be best treated in connection with the history of glass.

[174] Generally known as the Duc de Bourbon (1710-40). He was an enthusiast for the art of the Far East. An important work on Chinese art was published under his auspices in 1735. He imitated the painted hangings of the East, and even attempted to make Japanese lacquer. After his death, the two brothers Dubois, _épiciers à Chantilly_, migrated to Vincennes, and the Chantilly works were for a time neglected. See Gustave Macon, _Les arts dans la Maison de Condé_, 1903.

[175] Of the many European imitations of the ‘Kakiyemon’ style the Chantilly is most successful, while the ‘Old Japan’ was best copied at Chelsea. No European imitation in porcelain of the Chinese blue and white approaches in brilliancy that made in Delft ware in the seventeenth century.

[176] The porcelain of Saint-Cloud and Chantilly is well represented in the Fitzhenry collection.

[177] Some twenty miles south of Paris, not far from Corbeil.

[178] The name is written ‘Sèves’ in English catalogues of the eighteenth century, and the same form is found sometimes in contemporary French writings. We may compare the favourite signature ‘Fédéric’ of the Prussian king.

[179] _Mémoire Historique pour la Manufacture, rédigé en 1781 par Bachelier_, re-edited, with preface and notes, by G. Gouellain, Paris, 1878.

[180] See the note on p. 286. It would seem that the first successes at Vincennes were, in a measure, dependent upon the temporary breaking up of the factory at Chantilly on the death of the Duc de Bourbon in 1740.

[181] At a later time this man had a contract for the delivery of the paste, the secret of which he preserved, at a fixed rate per pound. In one year he is said to have received for this 800,000 livres!

[182] Such is my general impression, but M. Garnier, I see, speaks highly of his artistic capabilities. Bachelier founded in 1763 a free school of design, one of the few institutions of the old régime that have survived the many changes of government. It still exists as the _École Nationale des Beaux-Arts_.

[183] By this we get a hint as to the kind of ware made at Vincennes at the commencement, when under the influence of Chantilly.

[184] The account-books of these sales are still preserved. M. Davillier, in his little book on _Les porcelaines de Sèvres et Madame du Barry_, quotes the record of purchases made (at a later date, for the most part) by the royal family, by Madame du Deffand, and by M. de Voltaire. The latter bought, for 120 livres, ‘_Deux bustes de mondit Sieur, en biscuit_.’ Besides this, large sales were made yearly to the trade.

[185] The above description is that given by the Prince de Ligne in his memoirs. In the Johanneum at Dresden there is now to be seen a ‘bouquet’ which in every way corresponds to the prince’s account. The Meissen works for long had the credit of this trophy, but it is now acknowledged that it is identical with the present sent by the dauphine, in 1748, to her father, the Elector of Saxony. M. Davillier quotes a curious account from a contemporary memoir describing the difficulties and expenses incurred in transporting this ‘bouquet’ from Paris to Dresden. Are we, then, to regard it as the actual present given by M. de Fulvi to the queen, or as a duplicate?

[186] See for this and other references to porcelain in the _chronique scandaleuse_ of the day, the little book of M. Davillier quoted above.

[187] Some attention was paid to the housing and comfort of the workmen at the new establishment, but Bachelier makes no mention of ‘the gardens, cascades, fruit-trees, groves, woods, and a small chase for the artists, who enjoyed to hunt the stag and the wild boar none the less for their sedentary lives in the art palace’ (Marryat, p. 414). On the contrary, we are told that in a few years the houses and workshops were already threatening to fall down on the workmen’s heads.

[188] M. Bertin was himself a great collector of Chinese porcelain. In the _avertissement_ of the catalogue of his collection which was sold in Paris in 1815, we are told that through the medium of the Père Amiot he obtained many choice specimens, some of them direct presents from the Chinese emperor. We have already alluded to Kien-lung’s interest in exotic wares, and to the influence of these upon the native decoration.

[189] In the _fond lapis caillouté_ the deep blue ground is painted with fine veins of gold, to imitate the pyrites which generally accompanies the native stone (lapis lazuli). It was used as early as 1758 (see Wallace collection, Gallery XVIII., Case C.).

[190] As many as one hundred and sixty pieces, it is said, were carried off during a fire at Tsarskoe Selo. Some of these were afterwards repurchased by the Tsar Nicholas.