Page 17 - Bonhams Roy David's Collection Nov 2014 London
P. 17
18. The removal of the treasures in the Forbidden The Imperial porcelain is all made in the interior some distance
City in 19,557 boxes, which Johnston had heard were from Kiukiang. I wished to purchase some, as it is not to be
conservatively valued at £10 million, in 1933, as Peking found in Peking, but the pieces in the shops here are rejected
was threatened by the Japanese, to various locations in ones – those having slight blemishes. What I knew to be good
China, doubtless led to pieces ‘falling by the wayside’, and what I wanted, was difficult to find.
despite Chinese claims to the contrary. Johnston hoped
that ‘they will not be dispersed or find their way to foreign 21. Circulation of goods within Europe to Britain and
countries, that some of them, at least, will never again be seen America, particularly from Holland and France at various
in China is a painful probability’. In 1948 and 1949, 17,934 times.
pieces of porcelain, 5,760 works of painting and calligraphy,
3,894 jades and 2,382 bronzes were transported to Taiwan and What all this demonstrates is that there were many routes,
remain there to this day. opportunities and occasions for the Finer/Exceptional Non-
Imperially-Marked Chinese Domestic-Market Wares, as well
19. Such finer/exceptional domestic-wares as were as Imperial porcelains themselves, marked and unmarked, to
brought back by the trading companies, the Private get onto the market in China itself and for them to percolate
Traders, supercargoes and the like, outlined above. through to the West, or come in great accumulations at certain
times, and that there were numerous direct routes from China
20. Legitimate sales of Imperial ‘seconds’ or what to the West as well. Perhaps it is less surprising, therefore, that
were called ‘unselected porcelain pieces of lesser quality’, so many of these, as well as the Imperial pieces, have found
perhaps as many as 60-70,000 pieces a year. Peter Lam their way into Western collections, both private and institutional.
states: The estimated one and a half million artefacts in 2,000 Western
museums (by no means the greatest number necessarily
As to the disposal of the rejected, misfired pieces and lesser being ceramics, of course), that the Chinese government now
quality items, in the early Qing, following the practice under wants to catalogue, relates only to pieces, mostly Imperial,
the late Ming period, they were not destroyed or smashed, but from the Summer Palace. With all the routes, opportunities and
were kept at the Factory depot in Jingdezhen. It was only after occasions for items to flow or flood from East to West that have
Tang Ying assumed duty as resident Manager in Jingdezhen in been identified herein, the total amount of what we have called
the 6th year of Yongzheng (1728) that these rejects were sent ‘Finer/Exceptional Non-Imperially-Marked Domestic-Market
to Beijing together with the good pieces, so that they could be Wares’ and works of art in the West must have been and still is
sold in the Capital or to be given away as bestowal gifts by the immense, particularly in museums. Such pieces having been
emperor. Then in 1742, the Qianlong Emperor issued an edict ‘exported’ does not make them ‘Export’.
to Tang Ying ordering him to sell the rejects locally instead of
taking the trouble of sending them to Beijing. Since then this The term ‘Chinese Taste’ is so well established and understood
had been the general rule, except for pieces of imperial yellow as applying to a particular style of porcelains that it would
colour which were reserved exclusively for the use of the not be helpful to dilute or hijack it for the present purposes.
imperial household. This practice became a tradition since and Perhaps the phrase ‘Select Domestic-Market Porcelain’ will
had been closely observed till the end of the Qing regime. recommend itself for what has been described above as ‘Finer/
Exceptional Non-Imperially-Marked Chinese Domestic-Market
He adds, in answer to those thinking the figure is a mistake for Wares’.
6,000-7,000:
In the early years of the … Qianlong reign, the emperor made
several severe complaints on the high percentage of misfired
pieces, in one or two occasions he even didn’t allow Tang
Ying to write off those rejects. This might explain the extremely
high quality control measures and selection process in the
Yongzheng reign, and hence the big reject rate.
Sarah Pike Conger, wife of the American Minister to China
1898-1905, adds a footnote of interest:
