Page 265 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

A few words should be said on the subject of the porcelain made PORCELAIN FOR THE
for the European market during the seventeenth and eighteenth EUROPEAN MARKET
centuries. Already in the sixteenth century the South China pot-
ters were decorating dishes with Portuguese coats-of-arms, and
the Dutch trade vastly increased the demand in the seventeenth
century. It was the Dutch who chiefly furnished the "porcelain
rooms" in the great houses of France and Germany, of which the
unfinished Japanese Palace of Augustus the Strong, King of Po-
land and Elector of Saxony, was the most ambitious. Augustus is
reputed to have bartered a regiment of grenadiers for a set of fa-
mille verte vases. During the seventeenth century, European en-
thusiasts had been quite content to receive Chinese shapes deco-
rated in the Chinese taste, but by the end of the century the
practice was growing of sending out to Canton not only specimen
shapes but also subjects for decoration, in response to which
Ching-te-chen sent white porcelain "in the blank" down to Can-
ton, where it was painted under the supervision of the European
299 "[esuit China" dish. Porcelain
agents. The motifs included armorial bearings, genre scenes, fig- decorated in underglaze blue, with a
ure subjects, portraits, hunting scenes, pictures of ships taken Baptism scene alter a European
engraving. Ch'ing Dynasty
chiefly from engravings, and religious subjects such as the Bap-
tism, Crucifixion, and Resurrection—the so-called Jesuit China.
Toward the end of the eighteenth century, however, enthusiasm
for things Chinese began to wane, as Europe was beginning to
supply her needs from her own porcelain factories. The great days
of the export trade were over, and the so-called Nankeen ware
(enamelled porcelain) of the nineteenth century bears eloquent
witness to its decay.
Although the imperial factory continued to flourish until the end NINETEENTH
of the eighteenth century, its great era ended with the departure of CENTURY AND
PROVINCIAL WARES
T'ang Ying. Thereafter the decline was slow but steady. At first
we see an even greater ingenuity and elaboration in the manufac-
ture of such freakish objects as boxes with porcelain chains and
perforated and revolving vases. But after the beginning of the
nineteenth century, the decay is more rapid, and though some of
the wares of the reign of Tao-kuang (1 821-18 50) are of fine qual-
ity, the industry suffered a crippling blow when Ching-te-chen
300 Ch'en Ming-yuan (active 157 j-
1620), brush-rest, l-hsing ware.
Unglazcd stoneware. Ming Dynasty.