Page 22 - Chinese porcelains collected by Mr. and Mrs. Charles P. Taft, Cincinnati, Ohio, by John Getz

PREFACE

A former French minister to the Imperial court at Pekin, and a keen

connoisseur as well as collector, once said to the writer, "There are porce-
lains and porcelains, as there are diamonds and diamonds"; the inference
is so apt and to the point, that its repetition here may be pardonable.

The subtlety of rare old porcelain, which after the lapse of centuries

shows no loss of color or sign of decay, its mature appearance combined
with innate freshness, its brilliancy and translucency of glazes, and its sym-
metry and dignity of form, whether invested with a solid color or a clev-

erly balanced distribution of design, contribute each in its own way to

the inimitable character of those objects in fired kaolinic clay.

The taste for Oriental porcelains reached Europe early in the seven-
teenth century, but until recent years the real gems in porcelain remamed
utterly unknown to the Western world. Only at rare intervals a few pieces
which showed the native gout began to appear, and they, indeed, proved

a revelation in America as well as in Europe ; such isolated apparitions
in porcelain, coming from time to time, staggered amateurs by their beauty,
and, it may be also said, by their unheard-of values.

It has taken the Westem world over a century to pass beyond the ante-
room of this captivating art in Chma, and to reach the cabmets of the
prized, the ne plus ultra treasures owTied by mandarins or by Manchu

princes of the Celestial Empire. These precious objects have excited the
interest of collectors the world over, but it may be safely stated that not
before the great Tai-ping rebellion were such examples in porcelain seen

outside of China.
These fragile products, these fascinating and unobtrusive objects of art,

have been destined to wander far, and from country to country, from
mansion to mansion, always inspiring new delight, affording a field for the
display of cultivated taste, and furnishing a stimulating pastime, as well as
contributing by their presence to a quiet dignity of surroundings. Such
are the real attnbutes of rare Chinese porcelains.

The acknowledgments of the compiler are due to Mr. B. Duveen for

his collaboration and interest in this work.

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