Page 16 - Sothebys Imperial Falancai Bowl Kangxi Hong Kong

Imperial Alchemy:
H.M. Knight’s Gold-Pink Falangcai Bowl

Regina Krahl

propitious and beneficial and therefore superior to genuine
gold, and there was no shortage of chemical experiments to
Alchemists have endeavoured to transmute base metals
create it. The secret of a purple colour achievable through
into gold since time immemorial, in cultures both east and
gold remained in China, however, in the realm of philosophers,
west and were never in want of patrons. The reverse process
alchemists and natural scientists, and did not reach artists
– ventures to transform gold into something even more
and artisans.
desirable – naturally, was rarer. To create a masterpiece
such as the H.M. Knight falangcai bowl with its gold-derived In the West, gold had been used at least since late Roman
pink surface colour required a patron with a remarkably open times to colour red glass. The colouration is achieved through
mind and chemists and artisans at the very forefront of their ‘colloidal gold’, that is, the suspension of nanoparticles of
métiers. For all three to come together it took an auspicious gold in fluids where, depending on their size and shape,
moment in history. This ravishing bowl can be counted among they take on different tones of purplish red. The process of
the most ambitious projects of the imperial workshops in the creating this so-called ‘purple of Cassius’, was first described
Forbidden City under the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1662-1722), by Andreas Cassius the elder (died 1673), published in
and among the most 1684, but employed
successful. and made known
Alchemists have endeavoured to transmute
The Kangxi Emperor base metals into gold since time immemorial, to a wider audience
was an extraordinary only somewhat later,
personality, fanatic in in cultures both east and west and were never through a publication
his thirst for knowledge, in want of patrons. The reverse process – by the German glass
progressive in his belief ventures to transform gold into something even maker and alchemist
in science, demanding Johann Kunckel (1630s-
in his quest for tangible more desirable – naturally, was rarer. 1703), which appeared
in print in 1716. This
results, and enlightened
was a period, when
in his recruitment of
alchemists in Italy, Germany and France worked actively both
brilliant minds and hands, whatever their background. The
on the transmutation of metals and on the production of ‘gold-
short-lived cooperation between imperial artists and artisans
ruby glass’; and this was also the time, when Western Jesuits
and European Jesuits inside the Forbidden City, under
were trying to impress the Kangxi Emperor with new scientific
the watchful eye of their imperial patron, was a rare lucky
methods and materials.
episode for China’s material arts that brought about works
unimaginable just decades earlier, such as this amazing bowl. The Kangxi Emperor’s establishment of workshops inside
the Forbidden City, close to his own living quarters, where
In all cultures, attempts at aurifaction, the quest to make gold,
he could observe and comment scientific experiments
were intimately connected to the search for elixirs of long life.
and technical procedures first-hand, was a remarkably
In China, the property of gold to take on a ‘beautiful purple’
courageous undertaking. Not only were the noise, odours and
(zi yan) colour was admired already in the Han dynasty (206
dirt, which such factories necessarily produced, hazardous,
BC – AD 220) and ‘purple gold’ (zi jin), probably a copper-
and the fire-risk they posed, dangerous; but the presence
gold alloy treated to acquire a purple patina, was held in the
of foreigners intent on proselytizing at the very seat of the
highest esteem throughout the country’s mediaeval past. 1
empire’s power also represented a not inconsiderable, if less
‘Artificial gold’, created through alchemical practices and
tangible, peril.
often containing small amounts of gold, was considered