Page 33 - Decorative Arts, Part II: Far Eastern Ceramics and Paintings, Persian and Indian Rugs and Carpets

fig. 3a Qing dynasty, Kangxi period with mark dated 1714,
Baluster Vase with Blossoming Cherry Tree, porcelain with
famille noire overglaze enamel, The Cleveland Museum of
Art, 1996, Bequest of Cornelia Blakemore Warner, 47.678

fig. jb reignmark on base of 3a

porate famille noire decoration. A small famille noire cup in the Brian McElney collection, Hong Kong, bears a
Dresden inventory number on the base (fig. i), as does a famille verte figure of a lion mounted with a minia-
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ture famille noire vase, which is still in Dresden. Another important Kangxi porcelain that combines famille
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verte and famille noire decoration is a bowl in the Koger collection (fig. 2). These ceramics provide compelling
evidence that the famille noire technique dates to the Kangxi period. Furthermore, as Rose Kerr has shown, the
surviving records of the Dutch East India Company indicate that famille noire porcelains were regularly export-
ed from China to Europe during the eighteenth century. 37
There are, in addition, a small number of extant famille noire vessels that bear the Kangxi reignmark
(nianhao). The square vase from the Widener collection (1942.9.616) is an excellent example. The sides of this
vessel are decorated in the famille noire style, and the neck in the famillejaune style. The six-character Kangxi
mark is written on the base in underglaze blue pigment. A remarkable famille noire vase in Cleveland bears a
cyclical date on the base corresponding to 1714, suggesting that the production of this ware occurred in the
middle and late Kangxi period (figs. 3a, b).
Famille noire decoration continued into the Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns of the eighteenth centu-
ry, and Kangxi enameled porcelains were copied in great numbers in the nineteenth century at Jingdezhen and
elsewhere, including such European ceramic centers as the Samson kilns in France. The stylistic and technical
consistency of the famille noire porcelains represented in the Widener collection with the classical famille verte
porcelains of the Kangxi reign, however, indicates that they were produced in the same period.

FAMILLE ROSE PORCELAINS
The famille rose palette, characterized by rose pink, lavender, and deep red colors, is derived from weak con-
centrations of gold particles suspended in a low-fired glaze. In Chinese this palette is referred to asfencai (pow-

C E R A M I C T E C H N I Q U E S 17