Page 30 - Mounted Oriental Porcelain Getty Museum

designs for craftsmen to follow but rather catalogue FIGURE 14. Drawing in pen and wash by a member of the Slodtz
material issued by a marchand-mercier. The same prob- family (probably Michel-Ange Slodtz) for a perfume fountain,
ably can be said of certain drawings in the Berlin Kunst- composed of a Chinese porcelain vase mounted with hounds, scrolls
bibliothek.67 Engraved designs for mounted porcelain of gilt bronze, etc. Probably intended for use in one of Louis xv's
are rare and not always distinguishable from mounted hunting boxes. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale.
vases of other materials such as marble. No doubt these
and the numerous series of engraved designs of vases have been combined to suggest a boy looking into a peep-
produced throughout the eighteenth century in France show, a common enough sight in eighteenth-century
played their part in influencing the style of mounts. France but with no direct equivalent in China. Much
Engraved designs for silver also influenced the design of more elaborate effects were often produced in which Far
gilt-bronze mounts.68 Eastern and European porcelain were used together.72

In France, the most popular types of porcelain for The marchand-mercier Gersaint, whose shop A La
mounting at first were the blue-and-white wares that Pagode specialized in orientalia of all sorts, tells us that
were arriving in great quantities well before the end of the type of porcelain most frequently found in early-
the seventeenth century.69 In the eighteenth century, taste eighteenth-century Paris had a yellow ground, but that
gradually changed and the celadons and other mono- this porcelain was hardly ever mounted. His introduc-
chrome wares tended to be preferred for mounting.70 tion to the sale catalogue of the famous Fonspertuis col-
Especially appreciated were the gray-crackled wares (re- lection in 1748 gives a good summary of European views
ferred to as porcelaine truittee, where the cracks in the on Far Eastern porcelains at that date, and it seems
glaze formed a minute network, and as porcelaine cra- worthwhile to quote it here in full as a coda to this
quelee, where the cracks were larger). In the eighteenth introduction:
century, the distinction between Chinese and Japanese
porcelain was a good deal more blurred than it is today. On en voit aussi de bleue, de rouge et de verte, mais
Most celadons, for example, were believed to be of ces couleurs sont difficiles a etendre egalement et rare-
Japanese origin and were described in sale catalogues as ment elles reussissent; ce qui en rend les morceaux
"porcelaines d'ancien celadon du Japon." Because less fort chers quand Us sont parfaits. Yen ai vu meme de
Japanese than Chinese porcelain reached the European noire, mais elle fort rare id; elle ne pourrait plaire que
market, it was more highly prized than the Chinese. par sa rarite cette couleur la rendant trop triste. Enfin
la Porcelaine la plus ordinaire est a fond blanc, avec
It was not uncommon in the eighteenth century to fleurs bleues,paysages, figures ou animaux.
combine oriental and European porcelain in a single
piece. The desired effect in mounting porcelain at all was,
after all, decorative rather than archaeological or scien-
tific. Porcelain flowers of European manufacture, which
were invented at Meissen and enjoyed a widespread
vogue in 17305 and 17405, when they were exported all
over Europe, were frequently used for this purpose.
After 1745, such flowers began to be made at Vincennes
and tended to displace Meissen flowers, especially when
combined with oriental porcelains mounted in Paris.
Typical of this practice is a pair of candelabra sold by
Lazare Duvaux to "M. de FONTAINE Fermier general"
on March 13, 1756: "Une paire de girandoles a terasse
et brancages dores d'or moulu sur des magots7l anciens,
bleu-celeste, garnis de fleurs de Vincennes assorties . . .

264 Ifivres]."
Such pieces were functional, but they relate to an-

other decorative use of oriental porcelain combined with
porcelain of European origin. This is exemplified by cata-

logue no. 10, in which two or more different objects are
united for a purely pictorial effect. In this piece, two quite
disparate objects of Chinese porcelain, a figure of a boy,
flower-covered rockwork, and a pierced porcelain sphere

INTRODUCTION 17