Page 32 - Decorative Arts, Part II: Far Eastern Ceramics and Paintings, Persian and Indian Rugs and Carpets

fig. i Qing dynasty, Kangxi mark and period (1662-1722), fig. 2 Qing dynasty, Kangxi mark and period (1662-1722),
Cup, Brian McElney collection, Museum of East Asian Art, Bowl, Koger Foundation, Savannah, Georgia
Bath, England

combination of yellow and black grounds, thus utilizing both famille jaune andfamille noire enamel palettes (see,
for example, the Daoist deity from the Steele collection, 1972.43.40).

FAMILLE NOIRE PORCELAINS
The porcelains of the famille noire group include tall "hawthorn" vases; cylindrical, trumpet, rectangular, beaker,
and large covered vases; small objects for the scholar's desk; and, occasionally, figures. The majority dating from
the Kangxi period were decorated with enamels on the biscuit. After the initial firing, the outlines of the design
were painted onto the body with a dull brown pigment. The areas within the outlines were filled in with the
enamels of the standard famille verte palette, while the black background was created by covering the surface with
two layers of enamel: first a dull brownish black enamel, then a transparent green enamel. The vessel was then
fired at a low temperature in an oxidizing atmosphere to fix the enamels, resulting in a colorful design against a
deep black ground.
The reputation of these porcelains has suffered in recent years from the view that they were not pro-
duced in the Kangxi period, but were made instead in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In particu-
lar, John Pope suggested that the large famille no/re-decorated vessels of the type found in the Widener collection
were made in the nineteenth century, and wrote that "the evidence so far tends to suggest that they were made
33
for the European market, and that not so very long ago." As evidence, he cited the absence of famille noire porce-
lains in Chinese collections, including the former Qing imperial collection now in the National Palace Museum,
Taipei. Furthermore, he pointed out that large famille noire vessels did not appear in the late seventeenth-centu-
ry inventory of Burghley House in England or in the early eighteenth-century inventory of Augustus the Strong's
collection at Dresden. 34
A number of Kangxi porcelains that were included in the Dresden inventory of 1721, however, do incor-

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