Page 108 - Chinese Porcelain Vol II, Galland

LE COMTE.
3 io
" of which the
It is much to be desired that the designs
Chinese make use in painting porcelain were more beautiful.
well ; but the human are
Flowers they paint enough figures
all deformed. By this they do themselves wrong in the minds
who know them from these and
of foreigners, only designs,
imagine that they are really the ridiculous monstrosities they
in these paintings. However, such are their commonest
appear
ornaments. The most correct and intelligent drawings will
sometimes please them less than these grotesques.
"
On the other hand, they are very skilful in shaping their
vases, however large they may be. The shape is bold, well
and
proportioned, perfectly rounded, and I don't think our
best workmen could shape the large pieces better. They
value ancient vases as we do, but for a reason different from
ours; we value them because the older are more beautiful,
because of It is not, in fact, because the workmen
they age.
are not now as clever or the material as good as in the past.
Very beautiful porcelain is made at the present time, and I
have seen entire services of surprising fineness in the posses-
sion of Mandarins. But the European merchants have no
with the know
dealings good workmen, and as they nothing
about it, they receive anything the Chinese like to bring,
because they have the sale of it in the Indies. Besides, no
one takes the trouble to furnish designs, or have it made to
order. If M. Constance had lived it would have been sooner
known in France that the secret of porcelain was not lost in
China. But this is not our greatest loss by his death ; the
loss to religion in the entire East hardly permits us to pay
attention to artistic and commercial
changes.
" one more reason for the
There is of beautiful
yet rarity
The has established in the
porcelain. Emperor province
where it is made, a certain Mandarin, whose is to
duty it
choose for the Court the finest vases; he buys them at a
very moderate price. So, the workmen being badly paid are
and do not care to take trouble for which
negligent, they
are not remunerated. But if a private person employed them
and did not spare expense, we should now have as fine works
as those of the ancient Chinese.
"
The which comes to us from Fo-Kien is not
porcelain
of the name. It is black, coarse, and no better than
worthy