Page 268 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

CHINA

itself, and were admitted to a place among the orna-

ments of refined households. This last fact, attested

by the Missionaries in China during the seventeenth
century, confirms the hypothesis mentioned above

that the Chinese Famille Chrysanthemo-Pceoneenne bor-

rowed much of its beauty from Japanese models.

Toward the close of the era, that is to say, in the

early years of the eighteenth century, decoration of

this class underwent a marked change, the character-

istics of which are well described by Mr. A. W.

Franks as " a prevalence of half-tints and broken

colours, together with the appearance of a beautiful

ruby red derived from gold." Porcelains thus deco-

rated constitute the Famille Rose of French con-

whomnoisseurs. M. Jacquemart, to this classification

is due, falls into a serious error with regard to the

antiquity of such ware. "An incontestible fact," he

writes (" Histoire de La Ceramique," pp. 77, 78),
"
is henceforth established, that during the Hung-chih

period (14881515) the Chinese Famille Rose fur-
nished cups of the most admirable pate on which

birds, flowers, and insects were represented with the

greatest perfection." This misconception is the more

surprising inasmuch as the same writer notes that

the porcelains sent to Europe by the Jesuit mission-

aries during the reign of Kang-hsi and manufactured

under their very eyes " had nothing in common with

even those pieces of the Famille Rose which are con-

sidered least ancient." Evidently it did not occur to

the distinguished connoisseur that this absence of re-

lationship' to the Famille Rose on the part of porce-

lains sent to Europe in the seventeenth century,
might be attributed, not to the disuse of colours em-

ployed during the two preceding centuries, but to the

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