Page 73 - For the Love of Porcelain

twentieth-century imitations that can be 4
detected throughout museum collections Paul Cézanne (1839–
and from the straightforward fakes that 1906), Nature morte
appear in vast quantities on online platforms avec un pot de gingembre
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that offer them to private collectors. et des aubergines,
1893 - 94, oil on canvas,
Another material token of appreciation is 72.4 x 91.4 cm,
provided by a different kind of imitative on bequest of Stephen
object, a biscuit container produced for C. Clark, 1960,
Macfarlane, Lang & Co. in 1939 (fig. 3). Metropolitan Museum of
The shape of the porcelain jar resonates Art, New York,
in the lidded tin (in spite of the added inv. no. 61.101.4.
‘inauthentic’ knob that renders the airtight © bpk | he
metal lid openable); the layered blue enamel Metropolitan Museum of
decoration on the metal body is a reference Art, New York
to the patchy blue in the ‘crackled ice‘
background of the original. The tin translates
the Kangxi pattern into a transcultural
motif, one of the many indicators that the
original Chinese ‘design was enormously
popular, particularly in nineteenth-century
England, where it was called the “Hawthorne
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pattern”’.
3 Throughout European and American 5
Biscuit tin, 1939, made museums the most prominent and Around 1900, ‘ginger jars’ had become a Karl Hagemeister (1848-
for Macfarlane, widespread examples of the so-called ‘ginger standard constituent of European still life 1933), Stilleben mit
Lang & Co., Victoria jar’ feature underglaze blue variations of paintings, as exemplified in the works by Ingwertopf, Silbertasse
and Albert Museum, the ‘Kangxi blue-and-white ice with plum the French, German and Dutch artists Paul und Früchten,
inv. no. M.581-1983 blossom pattern’ (Kangxi qinghua bing mei Cézanne (1839–1906) Karl Hagemeister circa 1883, oil on panel,
© Victoria and Albert wen) (fig. 1). 3 The jars were produced in (1848–1933) and Floris Verster (1861– 26,5 x 38 cm, Bröhan
Museum, London Jingdezhen, the ‘porcelain capital’ of China, 1927) (figs. 4, 5, 6). That the depicted Museum, Berlin,
during the Kangxi period (1662–1722). In ceramic containers – which differ from the inv. no. 86-067,
the framework of museum displays they previously discussed examples and also from photo: Martin Adam,
appear in spaces dedicated to Chinese art each other – were all considered ‘ginger Berlin
and material culture (as in the Victoria jars’ is demonstrated by the paintings’ titles © Bröhan-Museum,
and Albert Museum), but they also figure which specify pot de gingembre, Ingwertopf Berlin
prominently in displays of reconstructed and Gemberpot. While Cézanne’s and
period rooms. Hagemeister’s ginger jars are of the same
type, Verster’s example is different, but a jar
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam re- of comparable shape and colour also appears
imagines an eighteenth-century Dutch in two still lifes by Piet Mondriaan (1872–
interior, the Leeuwarden Lacquer Chamber, 1944). 6 The depicted objects were in all
which incorporates a Kangxi ‘ginger jar’ (fig. likelihood available to the artists, as is clear
2). Equally, the British Peacock Room of in the case of Cézanne, who represented his
1876–77 integrates three Kangxi ‘ginger jars’, ‘ginger jar’ in a series of paintings. Unlike
which were not part of the original room, but the Kangxi ‘ginger jars’, the lower quality jars ginger jar depicted in the still lifes by the Examples of this hexagonal type appear either
were chosen by contemporary curators to that we see in the oil paintings are usually Dutchmen Verster and Mondriaan (fig. 7). with a round opening and a neck, where the
furnish the chamber in its current display at not displayed in museums. Its dense petrol blue glaze is characteristic lid can be settled, or a hexagonal opening
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the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. (and also appears in the paintings), but without a neck. While the decorations on the
The popularity of this type of jar is also The Princessehof National Museum of comparable examples covered in different jar in Verster’s painting cannot be identified,
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evident from the numerous nineteenth- and Ceramics in Leeuwarden has the type of shades of olive green glaze exist as well. the Leeuwarden example features six panels
68 I vormen uit vuur vormen uit vuur I 69