Page 30 - Decorative Arts, Part II: Far Eastern Ceramics and Paintings, Persian and Indian Rugs and Carpets

Yellow glaze, found in China from the early Bronze Age, was applied either directly on a biscuit body,
or over a neutral color high-fired glaze, then fired at a lower temperature. Certain deep-colored yellows derived
from iron oxide were reserved for court use during the Qing dynasty. A great variety of yellow glazes was devel-
28
oped during the Ming and Qing periods by introducing new methods and colorants. The colors range from
lemon to egg yolk to butter, as well as the shimmering amber color of the water pot from the Widener collection
(1942.9.502).

OTHER MONOCHROME GLAZES
Plain white wares, a long-standing favorite of connoisseurs in China, have white porcelain bodies, almost always
coated with colorless glazes, which allowed the whiteness of the clay to show through. The white backgrounds of
polychrome porcelains are also often achieved this way. The simplicity of monochrome white surfaces is some-
times relieved by some underglaze treatment of the clay, such as delicate incising or other subtle enhancement.
Artisans in the Qing dynasty went so far as to pierce the thin clay body completely and glaze over the openings,
producing a colorless design; the lacelike bowl from the Widener collection (1942.9.551) is such a technical tour
de force.
One renowned type of white ware was developed near Dehua, in Fujian Province. Some Dehua kilns
may have been operating as early as the Song dynasty, but the ware that came to be best known in the West as the
ivory or creamy-toned porcelain called blanc de chine dates from the late Ming and throughout the Qing period
(1972.43.25,26,28).
Manganese can produce rich aubergine purples or shades of brown, and was used in monochrome as
well as polychrome wares. Manganese carbonate and black manganese dioxide are relatively weak colorants,
requiring two to three percent by weight in the glaze formulation. Manganese is somewhat unpredictable and
does not always create an identifiable color. In an oxidized lead glaze the manganese produces a more muted
shade than the bright bluish purple produced by an alkaline glaze. In a reduced lead glaze the colorant turns
brown. Although the collection includes no purple monochromes, a beautiful example of this glaze is found as
background for a design of lotus and egrets in a pond on a fine seventeenth-century polychrome vase from the
Widener collection (1942.9.610).
Gold opacified with tin oxide produces a rose color. In the Kangxi reign the use of gold as a colorant
was introduced to China from Europe and is most often found in overglaze famille rose wares. The glaze was
painted or sprayed over a high-fired colorless glaze, and the vessel was then fired again at a lower temperature
(see the discussion below on famille rose enamels). 29
As the years advanced from the Kangxi to the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods, clay body materials
changed, firing technologies evolved, and a number of innovative and unusual monochrome glazes were devel-
oped, with evocative names like mirror-black (wujin, "crow-black metallic")) tea-dust (chayemo, "tea leaf"),
coral-red (shanhu hong, "coral red"), cafe-au-lait (zijin, "purple-gold"), soy sauce (jiangse, "soy sauce"), and gold-
en sand (jinshay "golden sand").

POLYCHROME PORCELAINS
Among the most widely acclaimed achievements of Chinese potters during the Qing dynasty were the enameled
porcelains of the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong reigns. The development of the famille verte enamel palette early
in the Kangxi reign resulted in the technological perfection of a range of translucent enamel colors that far sur-
passed the precedent wucai (five color) enameled porcelains of the Ming dynasty in visual complexity. The famille
verte (and closely related famille jaune and famille noire) enamels are generally associated with the Kangxi reign of
the Qing dynasty. The Kangxi-Yongzheng transition (c. 1720-1730) witnessed the introduction of the famille rose

H D E C O R A T I V E A R T S