Page 37 - Decorative Arts, Part II: Far Eastern Ceramics and Paintings, Persian and Indian Rugs and Carpets

bloom (1942.9.514, 515), as well as one in amber yellow (1942.9.502) in the National Gallery collection.
6. The pingguozun, or apple-shaped vase. This shape is less common. Its single representation in the National Gallery collection
is a peachbloom piece (1942.9.503).
7. The tangluoxi, or gong-shaped washer. The National Gallery collection contains four examples, two peachbloom (1942.9.504,
505) and two pale blue (1942.9.488, 489).
8. The yinsehe, or seal paste box. There are eight examples in the National Gallery collection (1942.9.506-510, 523, 524, 531).
19. See Kerr 1986, 88-89, for the evolution of color from Ming to early Kangxi, to the "standard" form.
20. The problem of establishing a universally accepted nomenclature for green glazes outside the celadon family has plagued both
Chinese and Western writers. As early as 1899, Stephen Bushell attempted to refine the English terminology of certain Chinese
phrases for tones of green. Numerous twentieth-century authors, however, have selected different words to translate the same
Chinese phrases. The task of arriving at an authoritative nomenclature is compounded by the wide variety of green glaze colors
encountered in Qing ceramics, including such apparent anomalies as "green oxblood" and "green peachbloom" effects.
Bushell tried to discourage the use of the term "apple-green." He claimed the Chinese themselves reserved pingguo lu (apple-
green, a darker purer green) and pingguo qing (apple-green, a paler, celadonlike green) as descriptive terms for the greenish areas of
the once-fired peachbloom and oxblood wares, especially the former, which was known as both jiangdou hong (haricot red) and
pingguo hong (apple red) in Chinese. He also described one kind of oxblood, which the Chinese called langyao, as lu langyao (green
Lang ware). In this type, little or none of the copper added to the glaze matured into red so the result was a uniform pale apple-
green (pingguo qing). This, too, differed from the somewhat bright green enameled monochromes, which according to Bushell the
Chinese described with color terms such as guapi lu (cucumber green) or shepi lu (snake-skin green), but which seem to have
occasionally been described as lu langyao in the West. Despite the apparent correctness of his opinions, Bushell was not heeded,
and "apple-green" has become the standard term for this ware in the West. It has also been adopted by some Chinese writers.
In some early Western language sources, including the original curatorial notes in the National Gallery, the apple-green pieces
are described as lu langyao (green Lang ware)—judging from the name, a green ware developed by the same kiln director, Lang
Tingji, who developed the oxblood glaze, simply known as langyao (Lang ware). But here too there is confusion as to whether this
term refers to those occasionally all-green versions of oxblood or peachbloom, which seems to be Bushell's interpretation of the
term, or whether it does indeed refer to the vessels with a green enamel applied over a thick crackled glaze. The latter view gains
some support from Lui Chen's note that certain Ming reproductions of "Ge" ware are called green Lang ware, if a green enamel
over such a glaze is what was meant. He also mentions Yongzheng and Qianlong versions of this ware.
What is most important to remember is that although apple-green is not the accepted name for this ware in both English and
Chinese, in older Chinese sources pingguo lu and the related pingguo qing almost always signify the ware now known as peach-
bloom, or in some instances oxblood. To illustrate the diversity of terms applied to green glazes, see the following: Bushell 1980,
303, 307-308, 409, 538; Chen 1951, 49, 52; Honey 1927, 26-27; Min Chiu 1977,131; Tianminlou 1987, 221. (Virginia Bower is the author
of the nomenclature exegesis in this note and in notes 21 and 26.)
21. The French nineteenth-century expert on ceramics, Albert Jacquemart (1808-1875) has been credited with introducing the
term dair de lune (moonlight) as an equivalent of the Chinese yue bai (moon white), an expression found in Qing-dynasty writ-
ings used to describe a variety of pale bluish gray glazed ceramic wares dating from the Song to the Qing. A careful search through
Jacquemart's writings, however, has thus far failed to uncover his use of dair de lune. The Goncourt brothers (Edmond de
Goncourt, 1822-1896, and Jules de Goncourt, 1830-1870), noted nineteenth-century collectors and connoisseurs of Chinese ceram-
ics, also have been credited with popularizing the term, but again the search for a printed citation in which this exact term appears
has proven futile. Writing in 1856, some years before Jacquemart, Stanislas Julien (1797-1873) in his partial translation of a Qing-
dynasty text on ceramics, Jingdezhen Taolu, used a term very close to dair de lune, namely blanc de lune (moon white), as a transla-
tion of yue bai. Later he used blanc de lune for yue bai in another Qing text, a list of various wares imitating those of earlier eras
made at Jingdezhen at the Qing imperial kilns. Significantly, perhaps, the same items are translated by Stephen Bushell, in his
Oriental Ceramic Art (1899), as dair de lune, which he simply credits to "the French," apparently indicating a change in accepted
nomenclature in the intervening years. The earliest printed source thus far located using the term dair de lune to refer to an object
almost certainly of the type now usually associated with that phrase is an 1882 catalogue of an auction of objects once in a French
collection held in Philadelphia. In 1887 dair de lune appeared as a color term (along with other popular French terms for Chinese
ceramics, such as sang de boeuf for oxblood red) in a catalogue of a sale of Chinese ceramics owned by the German-born, Paris-
based dealer and collector S. Bing (1838-1905), held in New York. Thus Bing probably should be credited as one of the popularizers
of these French names in the United States. However, in the 1887 catalogue dair de lune was not used exclusively to signify bluish

C E R A M I C T E C H N I Q U E S 21