Page 25 - Mounted Oriental Porcelain, The Getty Museum

within the confines of the palace of Versailles itself.
These, we learn, were intended "pour servir dans I'ap-
partement de Mile la comtesse de Mailly" at the Chateau
de Choisy. Having regard to the fact that this beautiful
young mistress of Louis xv is already known to have
influenced taste in the matter of furnishings of her apart-
ments, 49 it seems not unreasonable to assume she in-
spired the earlier Crown purchase of mounted porcelain.
It may be supposed, therefore, that the rage (it was no
less) for mounted porcelains, which obsessed French
society in the middle years of the century, awoke rather
earlier than 1741. The Angran de Fonspertuis collection,
for example, dispersed at auction in 1748, included
120 lots of oriental porcelain, more than half of which
were mounted in gilt bronze. Such an assemblage must
have taken more than a decade to bring together. Dezal-
lier d'Argenville, when discussing the collection of the
fermier Blondel de Gagny in the 1752 edition of his Voy-
age Pittoresque de Paris, provides evidence of the high
esteem in which mounted porcelain was held in the
middle years of the century. He writes:

La peinture ne fait pas le seul ornament du cabinet de
M. Blondel de Gaigny, on y voit avec plaisir une tres
grand quantite de porcelaines anciennes les plus par-
faites, dont les monture semblent disputer le prix avec
les pieces qu'elles accompagnent.

FIGURE 12. Ewer of Chinese cloisonne enamel of the Qianlong reign. The Livre-journal of Lazare Duvaux includes, as
Note the handle of gold in the form of dragons. National Palace explained above, innumerable entries for the sale of
Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China. mounted oriental porcelain in the years between 1748
and 1758, when the fashion was at its height. Interesting
as is the light that this document throws on many aspects
mounted in gilt bronze. An entry in the Journal du Garde of mounted porcelain, it in no way explains the reason
Meuble for April zz of that year mentions: "Un petit for the exceptional popularity of such pieces at this date.
Lion de porcelaine bleu celeste garni en chandelier de To understand this popularity it is necessary to consider
bronze dore, avec petites fleurs de porcelaine." for a moment the role played by China in European, and
The flowers would almost certainly be of Meissen especially French, thought during this period.
porcelain at this date (the Vincennes factory was not yet The first impact Chinese art had on Europeans was,
producing flowers), for the marchands-merciers never no doubt, to make them think of the Chinese people as
hesitated to combine oriental and Western porcelains in remote and quaint, much like the magots or pagodes
a single piece. At the end of the same year on Decem- they saw painted on porcelain or lacquered on screens or
ber 16, Julliot, the march and who had supplied the ear- like the head-nodding figures of porcelain that became
lier piece to the Crown, again delivered: "Deux pots so popular in France (note 71). Under the influence of
pourris de porcelaine de Japon fonds blancs, a fleurs de the Jesuit missionaries who traveled to China in consid-
couleur, garnie de bronze dore d'or moulu pour servir erable numbers in the seventeenth century, this attitude
dans le Garderobe du Roy au Chateau de Choisy," 48 to- changed rapidly and totally. Through the publications
gether with a pair of mounted porcelain candlesticks. sponsored by the order, a wealth of more or less accurate
From this time forward mounted porcelains appear with information on the country and its inhabitants began to
increasing frequency in the Crown inventories; invari- reach Europe. This was most valuable insofar as it pro-
ably, the mounts are of gilt bronze. A large consignment, vided, for example, the first adequate description of the
for instance, was purchased in June 1742 from Hebert, manufacture of porcelain at the factories at Jingdezhen.
the only marchand-mercier to have an establishment But, in fact, the Jesuits laced their historical and scientific

12 I N T R O D U C T I O N