Page 27 - Mounted Oriental Porcelain, The Getty Museum

long ceremony carried out by the Son of Heaven at each who himself was attached to the Sevres manufactory in
vernal equinox before the Altar of Earth just outside the an advisory capacity. Toward the latter part of the pe-
Forbidden City. The idea of this most sceptical of mon- riod covered by the sales ledger (1748-58), porcelaine
archs taking part in a fertility ritual that was intended to de France appears with increasing frequency; often
promote French crops is an ironical one. Against such a enough, it is mounted in gilt bronze. The Sevres factory,
philosophical background, it is easy to understand the as if to emphasize its determination to compete with ori-
wide influence of China on the decorative arts of France ental porcelains, began at just this period to produce
during this period. The mounting of Chinese porcelain monochrome vases of oriental shape. These pieces were
was only one manifestation, though an important one, marked with the interlaced L's of the royal manufactory.
of this influence. Their success may be judged by the fact that Brongniart,
There had always been, of course, a few contrary perhaps the ablest of all the directors of the Sevres fac-
voices raised against this almost universal chorus of tory, confesses to having been deceived in the open-
praise. As early as 1718 the Abbe Renaudot declared that ing years of the nineteenth century into purchasing what
the Chinese were in fact very little less barbarous than the he supposed to be a piece of Chinese porcelain, only to
American savages. There were a few others, amongst discover later that it was a product of the factory he
them thinkers of the caliber of Fenelon, Malebranche, directed. 56 The copies of Japanese lidded shells, gen-
and Montesquieu, who also raised objections. But it erally with a blue celeste ground, were particularly de-
took the better part of a half a century for their protests ceptive models produced at Sevres during this period
to get any wide attention. The last time that the senti- (see catalogue no. i6). 57
mentalized fertility ritual mentioned above was carried A certain amount of this pseudo-oriental Sevres
out was in 1769, when the Dauphin, the future Louis was set in severely neoclassical mounts of gilt bronze. 58
54
xvi, followed the plow. Four years later the Society of Nevertheless, in spite of this change of fashion, oriental
Jesus, which had done so much to further the cause of porcelain set in rococo mounts continued to retain, to
China in Europe, was suppressed by Pope Clement xiv, some degree, its popularity right down to the Revolu-
and the appeal of Chinese thought and Chinese art began tion and even later.
to decline. Ironically, the Jesuits themselves had provided Writing to Bentley from London on March 15,
the philosophes—and Voltaire in particular—with the 1798, the English potter Josiah Wedgwood casts an in-
very weapons that did so much to bring about their teresting sidelight on the persistence of the taste:
own downfall. Mr. Boulton tells me I sho be surprised to know w* a
d
There were other and more purely aesthetic rea- trade has lately been made out of Vases in Paris. The
sons, of course, for the waning of fashion for mounted artists have even come over to London, picked up all
porcelain, but it continued to be imported into France at the old whimsical ugly things they could meet with,
the time of and after the Revolution. The impact of Far Carried them to Paris, where they have mounted &
Eastern porcelains, Japanese and Chinese lacquers, and ornamented them with metal & sold them to virtuosi
even Chinese paintings (though few of these were reach- of every Nation . . . Of this sort I have seen two or
ing Europe at this stage, and probably no paintings from three old China bowles, for want of better things, stuct
Japan), with their use of non-European perspective and rim to rim, which havd had no effect, but looked whim-
59
arbitrary distribution of figures and landscape details, sical and droll enough . . . (see catalogue no. i3).
had been a potent factor in the development of the ro- In addition to the evidence it provides on the con-
coco, which had made its earliest appearance little more tinuance of the taste for such things at a time when
than a decade after the arrival of the Siamese "ambas- Baron Grimm tells us that "tout a Paris est a la greque,"
55
sadors" in Paris. For this reason, mounts in the rococo the letter reflects on two other matters. It makes it clear
style seemed to be particularly well adapted to the char- that the marchands-merciers sometimes sought their
acter of oriental porcelain. The new neoclassical style, oriental porcelain for mounting at centers other than
which was increasingly evident in France toward the lat- Amsterdam, and that potpourris similar to catalogue
ter end of the 17505, did not accommodate itself nearly no. 13 below evidently continued to attract collectors,
so well to Far Eastern styles and designs. In addition, at although they had been launched on the fickle taste of
just this moment certain economic pressures encouraged the Parisians at least two decades earlier.
the use of the relatively newly invented porcelain manu- Even later, such objects continued to command
factured at Sevres rather than foreign imports. This is high prices in the sale room. For example, in the Gaignat
clearly apparent in the Livre-journal of Lazare Duvaux, sale in 1768, a single celadon vase with mounts fetched

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