Page 14 - Mounted Oriental Porcelain, The Getty Museum

INTRODUCTION

A wide variety of ceramic Italian—from the the porcelains which were mounted Louis xiv (see cata-
wares—English,
in silver in consider-
able
quantity
French,
and
German,
during
of
reign
the
Far
as
of
East,
mounts
well
.Near
nos.
6)
4
and
and
many
pieces were removed
enriched
glass, rock crystal, and hardstones, as have been vessels of logue of these oriental are rare. Probably the and melted
with metal mounts in the course of European history. down when such things had ceased to be fashionable. 3
However, the collection catalogued here consists almost Far Eastern porcelains were also mounted in coun-
exclusively of Chinese and Japanese porcelains mounted tries other than France. In Holland, much porcelain was
in Paris during the reigns of Louis xiv (1643-1715) and enriched in this way during the seventeenth century
Louis xv (1715-1774). In the majority of cases, the (though much less in the following centuries) and is
mounts date from around the two middle decades of the sometimes depicted in Dutch paintings of the period.
eighteenth century. These facts call for some explanation. Mounts were also applied to porcelains in Germany,
The practice of mounting oriental porcelain in Eu- more frequently to copies of oriental pieces. Neverthe-
rope dates back at least to the Middle Ages, and pieces less, more Meissen porcelain was in fact mounted in
so mounted survive from the early Renaissance. These Paris than in Saxony itself. Examples of Chinese porce-
mounts were a tribute not so much to the beauty of the lain with Venetian mounts are known, but they too are
porcelains as to the extreme rarity of the material. 1 very few. In England, mounts were occasionally applied
When, in the second half of the seventeenth century, ori- to Chelsea and other native wares and, though rarely, to
ental works of art began to reach Europe in considerable Chinese and Japanese porcelain (see catalogue no. i). 4
quantities, they continued to be mounted in precious or Englishmen such as Lord Bolingbroke, who collected
semiprecious metals (generally silver or silver-gilt), but such things, mostly purchased their mounted porcelain
5
it was their exotic character rather than their rarity that in Paris. In effect, the history of mounted oriental porce-
now excited interest. By the middle of the eighteenth lain in the eighteenth century, which might justly be
2
century, lachine was the height of fashion in Paris, the called the golden age of mounted porcelain, is, for all
generally acknowledged focal point of European taste at practical purposes, the history of porcelain mounted
the time. Without question, more oriental porcelain was in Paris.
set in metal mounts (by this date, generally of gilt bronze) Whatever may have been the intention in earlier
of European design, in Paris, between 1740 and 1760 epochs, during the eighteenth century the main reason
than at any other period in the world's history. Conse- for setting these oriental objects in mounts of European
quently, more examples from this period have survived design was to naturalize them to the decoration of French
into the modern world. interiors of the period; i.e., to modify their exotic char-
Pieces mounted during the Middle Ages are virtu- acter by giving them a quasi-French appearance. 6 The
ally nonexistent today; we know of them only from de- men who devised these pretty things for the rich, extrava-
scriptions in early inventories. A few pieces mounted gant, and sophisticated society of eighteenth-century
during the Renaissance survive, but they are exceedingly Paris were, to some degree, the equivalent of modern
rare; only a handful are found in the United States. Even interior decorators, but they were not the makers of the

i