Page 35 - Decorative Arts, Part II: Far Eastern Ceramics and Paintings, Persian and Indian Rugs and Carpets

The evidence of the inscriptions cited above suggests that the overglaze famille rose painting on the inte-
riors of the "ruby-back" dishes of the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods was executed in Canton and not at
Jingdezhen or Beijing. The decoration on many "ruby-back" dishes also resembles motifs found on Canton
enamels on metal. It is likely, however, that these dishes were first manufactured at Jingdezhen and then shipped
to Canton to be decorated. The superb calligraphy of the Qianlong seal script mark on the dish in France, which
is stylistically identical to seal script marks on the best Qianlong blue-and-white and enameled porcelains made
and decorated at Jingdezhen, supports this hypothesis. 46
The "ruby-back" family of dishes appears to have largely disappeared by the mid-eighteenth century
(the reason is unknown), although both the ruby-colored monochrome glaze and the overglaze famille rose
palette persisted as modes of decoration through the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The story of Chinese ceramics is one of astonishing longevity and great technological sophistication. In
it are mirrored developments in Chinese social, political, and economic history that are key to understanding
why certain techniques, shapes, and decorative motifs appeared when they did. While the majority of Chinese
ceramics are utilitarian in nature, they are enormously valuable for the ways in which they reflect multiple
dimensions of China's rich and complex history and geography. A full understanding of Chinese ceramics neces-
sitates an understanding of ceramic technology, particularly the technology of kilns and glazing. It is hoped that
this introduction to Chinese ceramic techniques and the catalogue will make the aesthetic experience of the
National Gallery's collection more meaningful.
SL/JK/JO

NOTES
1. Proto-porcelain is a term currently favored by many Chinese ceramic historians over the more familiar term stoneware. It
acknowledges the link between the early earthenware and the later porcelains (now known to have been first made in the seventh
century A.D. rather than the eighth as often cited). Abundant analyses of sherds from wares of the first millennium B.C. have been
conducted in China (at such places as the Shanghai Silicates Research Institute of the Academia Sinicia) in recent years to prove
that the Chinese scholars are justified in adopting the term. The term was first used by Berthold Laufer, at the Field Museum,
Chicago, when he theorized that Chinese hard glazing was an outgrowth of soft glazing, but archaeology in China has proved the
converse to be truth. However, what he did "discover" was that there must be some sort of link between the pottery traditions and
the porcelain traditions.
2. Wood 1988,10, 57.
3. Recent studies reveal that the composition of porcelain in China varied over time and region. See Valenstein 1989, 312; Li and
Zhang 1986, 217-236. See also Yap and Hua 1992,1488-1494.
4. Li 1985,135-162.
5. The first porcelain imported to the West from China represented a technically advanced stage and was both white and translu-
cent. These naturally became the Western criteria for porcelain.
6. Chinese "soft paste" and European "soft paste" should not be confused. Medley (1976, 259) explains, "The Chinese material is a
natural white-firing clay, probably of the pegmatite group of clay minerals. The Chinese call it hua-shih, 'slippery stone,' and it was
sometimes added to poor quality porcelain, perhaps for its plastic quality. The European soft paste is a fritware and thus artificially
constituted of a glass frit combined with ball clay. The Chinese material in the fired state is rarely translucent, while the European
type usually is."
7. Wood 1988,10.
8. Kerr 1986, 41.
9. Wood 1985-1986, 41.
10. Underglaze cobalt was also generally used to inscribe reignmarks on Chinese ceramics. The use of reignmarks (nianhao) was
rare before the fifteenth century (early Ming dynasty), although they are occasionally found either incised into the clay body (for
example on tenth-century Yue wares) or inscribed with a brush in ink (as on Song-dynasty Yaozhou celadons). From the reign of

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