Bernard Rackham

“ Thanks to an Italian sculptor, Franz Bastelli, the Bavarian factory takes foremost rank in Germany for its statuettes; whether characters from the Italian comedy, or dancing cavaliers and ladies, they display in their crisp, nervous lines, a spontaneity tempered by masterly restraint which is best appreciated when the white porcelain is left to speak for itself, unobscured by the application of enamel colouring. ”

“ In the domain of porcelain the outcome of these favourable conditions is seen in an extraordinary advance along technical lines unparalleled in the history of ceramics. A white body of the utmost purity, a glaze fusing so perfectly on to the surface of the paste as to give an appearance of deep luminosity, underglaze colours and overglaze enamels unsurpassed in brilliance and liveliness, brought within the reach of the potter a wonderful variety of effects far beyond anything that had been attained before. ”

“ While the harmonious blending of the enamels with the glaze, which is so pleasing a feature of soft-paste china, was necessarily absent from the Bristol productions, great brilliancy of colouring was obtained without involving garishness of effect, as may be seen from Plate 28, drawn from a vase in the Schreiber Collection. The fanciful birds are not original creations of the Bristol painter, but reflect the type commonly seen on early pieces of Vincennes and Sèvres; the quiet dignity of the shape, on the other hand, is thoroughly characteristic of the best English work. ”

“ At what date the Derby factory was founded, and the nature of its earliest productions, is obscure, but to it belongs the credit for a style of decoration unsurpassed among “useful” wares for its suitability to the purpose for which the china was made. Many and varied are the dainty borders, executed sometimes in gold alone, sometimes in bright enamel colours laid on with a sparing and discriminating hand. ”

“ The sober designs in dark blue and gold almost equal those of Derby in their suitability for the embellishment of table wares. It is not till the beginning of the nineteenth century that a noticeable decline sets in, but from that time forward the Worcester wares, whether made in the original factory or by the rival firm of Chamberlains, become increasingly lacking in interest. All artistic qualities are smothered in overloaded decoration, ungainly shapes, and unrestrained lavishment of gilding. ”

“ The romantic story of Johann Friedrich Böttger, the chemist to whom it was due, is well known: how he claimed to possess the secret of making gold, how he fled from Berlin across the Saxon border to avoid the covetous attentions of the King of Prussia, how he was promptly visited with the fate he wished to escape, at the hands of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and how he spent a great part of a short life in fruitless efforts to make gold by alchemistic means for replenishing the Elector’s coffers. ”

“ To the Chinese the world owes a material as lovely as any ever fashioned by the hand of man, and some account of the growth of this art in Chinese hands is a necessary prelude to any study alike of the Chinese ware itself and of the European imitations of it.
The first beginnings of this wonderful art must be sought in pottery of humble material. The rough but dignified earthenware of the Han Dynasty, contemporaneous approximately with the opening of the Christian era, signalises the first appearance in China of pottery of an artistic nature. ”

“ The earlier of these were interpretations, not as a rule slavish copies, of the Chinese famille rose and of the works of the Japanese potter, Kakiyemon; their colours are often harmonious, and their gilding of peculiar richness. Such praise cannot be bestowed on the later productions, which have too often a garish and clumsy air; the charm of simplicity is sacrificed in the effort to be splendid, and the results are crude and ungainly. ”

“ The vase represented in Plate 9 is a fine example of this archaistic school of the time of Yung Chêng. The shape, of noble simplicity, dates back to the earliest period of the Ming dynasty, but the decoration belongs to the “five colour” type of Wan Li. The design is composed of a dragon and a mythical phœnix (fêng huang) , emblems of the emperor, amid flowers and foliage of the tree-peony on wavy stems. The breadth of treatment, the vigorous drawing, the masterly balance of the colouring, entitle this vase to a place among the best performances of the Chinese potter. ”

“ The seeds of decay may be considered to have been planted about27 the beginning of the seventeenth century, when the establishment of the European trading companies brought China into close and constant touch with the Western world. The new markets thus opened for Chinese products inevitably brought about the creation of a new style in Chinese art to suit the taste of European buyers. Traces of Western influence may be discerned, if not in the decoration, at all events in the forms of Chinese porcelain all through the seventeenth century, and in K’ang Hsi’s reign its effect is fully apparent. ”

“ Under the Empire and the restored monarchy everything was done that could be effected by rich gilding and highly-finished painting to bring back the magnificence of former years, and the new material made possible dimensions never attempted before; witness is borne by the huge vase in the Sèvres Museum representing the arrival in Paris of the artistic spoils of Napoleon’s Italian conquests, and another with a frieze depicting the athletic sports of ancient Greece. ”

“ The gadroons on the neck, the frieze with a grotesque mask between two lions, and the flowers in natural colours on a gold groundwork, seem when analysed rather incongruous elements, but the effect of the whole though brilliant is yet harmonious. ”

“ France suffered perhaps less than other countries from the general debasement of art in that age, but the redeeming charm of the eighteenth century styles was gone, and with it the glory of the Sèvres factory ”

“ In Persia, for example, painted designs are met with on the pottery found by French excavators in the lowest stratum on the site of the city of Susa, dating possibly from 5000 years before Christ, while on the semi-porcellanous ware of ancient Egypt painting is of common occurrence. It was widespread as a ceramic process in the Near East and the countries round the Mediterranean long before it was practised by the Chinese. The earliest painted wares of China certainly do not date back before the Sung dynasty, and it is doubtful whether even so great an age as this can be ascribed to them. ”

“ In the remaining panel is a mountainous landscape rendered in the conventional manner customary in Chinese paintings; the conventions are not such as we are familiar with in Western art, but once accepted, they will be found to suggest nature and to perform a decorative function no less effectively than those of the European designer.
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 use of gold as the only decoration on a white ground became increasingly popular, and much charming ware is ornamented in this manner. A typical instance may be cited in the spirit-kettle made at the Clignancourt works, comprised in the series of Parisian hard-paste in the Fitzhenry gift. The affectation by these small factories of classical forms is exemplified in the same collection by a ewer with oblong basin decorated in gold and blue, made in the duc d’Angoulême’s kilns in the rue Bondy, which are also famous for the pretty cornflower-sprig pattern afterwards popular in English china. ”

“ These wares rank among the most splendid achievements of the potter’s art; in beauty of form and gorgeousness of colour they have never been surpassed, while by their nature they are free from the defect of over-refinement incident to the productions of an age of great technical discoveries, which has been noticed in speaking of the painted porcelain.
Lastly, before passing on to the next reign, a word must be said of the statuettes of divinities and the objects fashioned in the shape of fruit or living creatures, which are another feature of the K’ang Hsi renaissance. ”

“ Of all the materials employed as pigments in the decoration of porcelain, the most important and the most widespread in use is cobalt-blue. It is said that this colour was first introduced into China from the west of Asia as early as the tenth century, but it does not appear to have been used for painting before the thirteenth century. In this connection mention may be made of a miniature vase at South Kensington of the cream-coloured Ting ware already alluded to, which is painted with indistinct markings in cobalt-blue. ”

“ Before leaving the subject of French porcelain, something must be said of the cluster of Parisian factories for making hard-paste china, which arose in many cases under Court patronage after the introduction of the new material at Sèvres. The exclusive privileges of the royal factory, designed to repress all attempts at competition within the borders of France, had been one by one abandoned, having become gradually of no effect. In 1787 complete liberty was accorded to all French manufacturers to pursue all the methods employed at Sèvres, including the jealously-protected use of gilding. ”

“ From them we can trace the porcelain of later times, by which the Chinese have proved themselves the master-potters of the world, excelling and giving the lead to the ceramists4 of every other race. Yet it is strange to reflect how late in history their skill has been learned, and to remember that Persians, Egyptians, Greeks and other Western races were masters of the potter’s craft many centuries before the Chinese achieved their earliest artistic wares. Coming late into the field, they evolved in a comparatively short span of time a material which placed them ahead of every rival. ”

“ Mere casual pleasure in its superficial attractiveness will not fail to give place to an ever-deepening interest for those who will take the pains to learn its inner secrets, to discover in it, expressed in enduring form, the creative power of a craftsman’s soul, nay more, a reflection of the very spirit of humanity in its changing moods, varying in conformity with racial differences or environment of time and place. ”

“ The high esteem in which Chinese porcelain has been held for centuries in the Nearer East is evident from the pronounced Chinese influence manifested in Persian and Syrian art from an early period, while during the course of the Ming dynasty the export of porcelain from China to Western Asia8 grew enormously, and the imitation of Chinese motives became the predominant element of design in the indigenous wares of Persia. ”

“ For some ten years the Chantilly potters confined their artistic efforts as far as painting was concerned to adaptations or often close imitations of Oriental porcelain of the preceding decades, of which the princely patron had a rich collection. The Chinese famille verte supplied the motives in a few instances, but the wares which suggested to Cirou and his painters their daintiest designs were the work of Kakiyemon. Few things have been made to display more effectively the delicate freshness which is the crowning virtue of painted porcelain. ”

“ The manufacture of porcelain at Rouen was not continued for long after the death of Poterat in 1694, in consequence of a dispute between his sons, which resulted in their privilege being withdrawn. The nature of this earliest French porcelain is established by a few pieces, which there are sufficient grounds for supposing to be authentic. One of these is at South Kensington, a tall cup finely fashioned in a paste of bluish tone and carefully painted in a strong underglaze blue; the design consists of small vases of flowers amid formal lambrequin ornament below a castellated border. ”

“ The slightly uneven tone of the deep blue ground was doubtless regarded by the makers82 as a defect, which they would gladly have overcome if they could; but it is just this quality of variety which gives life to the surface, and makes these Chelsea glazes compare favourably with the almost too perfect ground colours of Sèvres.
The late Chelsea style is most pleasing in the wares made for less pretentious purposes. No better illustration could be found than the tea- and coffee-service with claret-coloured ground bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert Museum by Miss Emily Thomson of Dover. ”

“ This wondrous product of human skill,—as it were a new stone of rare value added to those which nature has given us,—will assuredly kindle in the hearts of its admirers a desire to learn something of its story. ”

“ Their taste and judgment was never better displayed than when objects of beauty or rarity were handed to them to be enriched by their skill. The vase before us is a typical case; the porcelain loses nothing of its own loveliness in becoming the medium for displaying the beauty of the metalwork.
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The numerous minor factories existing in China before the Ming dynasty were unable to hold their own against the great imperial factory at Ching-tê-chên. Since the time of its establishment there has been only one other factory of artistic standing, that of Têhua in the province of Fuchien. ”

“ Virtuosity took the place of aesthetic spontaneity; while there is undeniable beauty in the new achievements, they generally lack the vigour and sincerity of earlier periods when the principles of technique were less well understood.
The characteristic qualities of K’ang Hsi porcelain are well illustrated by the vases chosen for the drawings reproduced in Plates 7 and 8. The first of these is a “blue and white” covered vase, formerly in the collection of Mr. James Orrock, with decoration in shaped panels reserved on a “powdered blue” ground. ”