Page 104 - Sothebys Important Chinese Art April 3 2018

ADDING FLOWERS
TO BROCADE

REGINA KRAHL

The porcelains produced by the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen with purely Chinese elements such as lotus, key-fret, ruyi and
for the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736-1795) are characterised by petal panel motifs.
the phenomenal opulence of their decoration as well as the
Sgraffiato, or sgraffito, work, the carving through a surface
rich spectrum of their enamels, and the present vase with its layer to reveal a contrasting layer below, is a very versatile
radiant colours and delicate sgraffiato work archetypically
technique that has been used for ceramics both east and
embodies this style. Porcelains decorated in this way are in
west, and in China was already employed in the Song dynasty
China identified as yangcai, ‘foreign colours’, but the European
(960-1279), for example, at the Yaozhou and Cizhou kilns. Its
craftsmen that had come to the court during the Kangxi reign use on porcelain, where a design is carved into and through a
(1662-1722) and were engaged also by the Qianlong Emperor,
layer of enamel, down to the glazed porcelain underneath, thus
brought more than the colours, which fundamentally changed
revealing the design in white, appeared around the same time
the palette of porcelain decoration: they also introduced
both in the imperial enamelling workshops of the Forbidden
designs and decorative elements that were en vogue in Europe City in Beijing, and in the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen in
at the time.
Jiangxi province. Liao Pao Show attributes its introduction to a
The Rococo style with its exuberant use of interlaced C- increased effort from 1741 onwards by Tang Ying (1682-1756),
and S-shaped curves, often executed in pastel colours and the long-time supervisor of the imperial kilns, to please the
gold, which had originated in Paris in the early eighteenth Qianlong Emperor, after the latter had criticised the porcelain
century, had quickly spread throughout France, Germany, production of the previous years, see Huali cai ci: Qianlong
Italy and beyond, and was prevalent in the arts and crafts, in yangcai/Stunning Decorative Porcelains from the Ch’ien-lung
interiors and on facades. It was a light and mellifluous style, Reign, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2008, pp. 10-41.
that was breathing fresh air into the heavier baroque art and
While in Beijing the carved designs mostly consisted of
architecture in Europe and now introduced a more cheerful
formal diaper patterns and were used only on the outside
element also into the more serious and sedate aesthetics that of bowls and dishes, the craftsmen of Jingdezhen opted
had prevailed in the Kangxi and Yongzheng (1723-1735) reigns.
for more delicate designs and elevated the style to become
Some of the ruby-ground yangcai pieces in the National primary decoration. The filigree scrollwork engraved with a
Palace Museum, Taipei, are so Western in their decoration needlepoint, characteristic of Qianlong yangcai porcelains,
that they would seem to have been designed by Europeans. which conveys the impression of rich silk brocade, is in
On the present vase, the style, although clearly inspired by Chinese called jinshangtianhua, literally ‘adding flowers to
Western ornament, has already taken on a Chinese flair, as brocade’, an expression not unlike the English ‘gilding the lily’.
highly stylised, symmetrically arranged European arabesques, It resulted in some of the most sumptuous porcelains of the
rendered in pastel tones with distinct shading, are combined Qianlong period.

102 SOTHEBY’S 蘇富比