Page 24 - Fine Imperial Porcelain at Sothebys Hong Kong April 3 2019

gone out to Jingdezhen to provide specimens with a glazed the new Western enamelling manner, the present bowl
interior and base, and an unglazed exterior. The unglazed displays complete mastery of this sophisticated new
parts were then fully covered with enamel, just like on a method of decoration – a distinction not shared by all its
copper vessel. Background colours may also have been contemporaries.
deemed desirable to create smooth surfaces rather than The new enamelling technique was introduced to and
designs raised in slight relief, since even some Yixing wares employed at Jingdezhen not much later, but the differences
are covered in dark brown enamel, of the same tone as the between contemporary wares created with similar materials
original stoneware, applied as background colour around the in the two different manufactories are vast. What is special
design.
about these early pieces from the Beijing palace workshops
This work did not start until 1711, leaving only a dozen is the remarkable variety in their range of enamels, which
years for the technique to be perfected during the Kangxi seems to vary from piece to piece, whereas for the yangcai
reign. The enamels used in that period were still imported or famille-rose porcelains produced at Jingdezhen a
pigments, which must have contributed to the rarity of standard palette was very soon developed and employed,
completed items. By far the most special among the new which allowed for little flexibility.
foreign enamels was the ruby- or rose-red enamel tone, The other all-important difference between Beijing and
not only since it was dramatically different from all locally Jingdezhen manufactories is that the latter had always
created colours, but also because it was derived from gold. produced porcelains on a massive scale. Individual items
The Imperial workshops had apparently not yet mastered it were completed production-line style, with many different
even in the 6th year of Yongzheng when, under guidance of hands contributing to every single piece. The Beijing
Prince Yunxiang, brother of the Yongzheng Emperor (r. 1723- workshops on the other hand, located in a pavilion within
35), eighteen new enamel colours were reported to have the confines of the palace, were a completely different
been successfully produced there.
setup. Here individual artists would create individual
The present bowl is wonderful testimony to this collaboration works of art, and the whole complex was small in scale,
between the potters in Jingdezhen and the painters in not least for simple reasons of space and inconvenience
Beijing. The former threw and fired the plain porcelain bowl to ordinary palace life. The present bowl is unique, like all
in Jiangxi province, south of the Yangzi River, the glaze falangcai bowls in the Kangxi period, even though they all
carefully added to leave a clean, glazed rim and a neat, share overall stylistic features, equally pointing to a small
unglazed footring; the latter painted a highly complex design operation.
of naturalistically interlaced flowers in a wide variety of Inspiration for some of the decoration devised during this
colours and shades, then applied a remarkably even rouge- period probably came from the Westerners who mastered
red background, and fired the bowl again, to admirable the enamelling technique, as many of the early falangcai
perfection, within the Forbidden City. Although such Kangxi porcelains are decorated with fanciful stylised blooms that
examples are among the earliest porcelains decorated in
are uncharacteristic of Chinese ornament. Other designs,

22 SOTHEBY ’S FINE IMPERIAL PORCELAIN