* 54 Gao Yang

A pair of Canton Enamel Masterpieces in the Rijksmuseum

Canton enamelled porcelain (guangcai) usually refers to porcelain made in , , and decorated with enamel in Canton. The Rijksmuseum has a pair of identical porcelain vases in its collection that may represent one of the earliest examples of Canton enamel porcelain (fig.1). The vases were collected by J.Th. Royer (1737-1807) and transferred to the Rijksmuseum in 1883. One side of these vases shows two Chinese ladies playing a game of go. On the other side is a 15-character Chinese inscription reading Boyi tu jiachen huazhao xie yu lingnan zhujiang jingshe (‘A game of go, painted on the day of the Flower Festival in the year jiachen, in a beautiful house on the Pearl River in Lingnan’) (fig. 2).1 Canton was a part of the Lingnan area of Qing China (1644–1911), and the Pearl River is also in Canton. Hence the inscription reveals that these vases were decorated in Canton.

The enameller

Generally, information about the enamellers of Chinese porcelain is very rare. However, in this case, we can learn a lot about the enameller. The inscription is followed by a ruby-red seal of Tang Jintang. Qing- dynasty painters usually placed their seals after the inscription in this way. Occasionally, craftsmen of objects did this too. An enamel copper in the collection of R. Albuquerque has a seal reading zhuju (‘living with bamboo’).2 This signet is followed by the inscription zhuju zhuren xie (‘written by the bamboo house owner’).3 Tang Jintang is mentioned in the Qing imperial court records as a craftsman from Canton who was summoned to the court to do enamel work for the imperial workshop in the sixth year of Qianlong reign (1741).4 In 1757, the Qing government ruled that Canton should be the only export trade port, and it remained so until the Treaty of Nanjing (29 August 1842). Canton continued to play a vital role in the Chinese export industry after 1842. Canton’s craftsmen were skilled in the technique of enamelling copper as a result of Canton’s exposure to Western trade. This is why the Qing court summoned Tang Jintang and other enamel artisans to help

C anton E namel Porcelain M aster p ieces with the making of enamelled copper in the court workshop.

Tang Jintang was recorded as a craftsman of enamel on metal, but it is highly likely that he also worked on porcelain. The enamel on porcelain is very similar to the enamel on metal. Both are imitations of European enamel. Enamel was developed in and was sent to Jingdezhen for the purpose of decorating porcelain.5 The workshop mastered the technique of making enamel pigment later and

sent materials as well as craftsmen to Beijing duringDownloaded the Yongzheng from Brill.com09/24/2021 06:10:50PM via free access Fig. 1 period.6 The introduction of these new enamel techniques gave Identical vases with enamelled porcelain a different tone from famille verte porcelain two ladies playing a pigments developed locally in China. The Dutch game of go, porcelain, h. 16 cm, China, (VOC) noticed that in 1740s production started to shift from Jingdezhen 7 1724, Rijksmuseum to Canton. According to the narrative of modern Canton enamellers, Amsterdam, inv.no. the first group of Canton enamelled porcelain copied the technique and AK-NM-6352 style of Jingdezhen porcelain.8 The story goes that the first enamellers in Canton were two craftsmen called Yang Kuai and Cao Jun who moved there from Jingdezhen. Hobson argues that both porcelain and copperware was enamelled in Canton during the same period, and possibly even in the same workshops.9 It is possible that Tang Jintang himself was one of the earliest enamellers to work on porcelain in Canton.

The year jiachen

The year jiachen in the inscription also gives rise to discussion.10 In the Chinese lunar calendar, years are recorded in 60-year circles. Jiachen is one of the years in this 60-year circle. Based on the style of these vases, they are possibly works from the Yongzheng period (1722–1735) or date from the Qianlong period (1736–1795).11 Enamelled porcelain in these two periods has a special style, with a blank background, a black inscription and pink seals. The quality of these two vases in the Rijksmuseum is

comparable to Qing court porcelain products fromDownloaded these two from Brill.com09/24/2021 periods 06:10:50PM via free access 56

Fig. 2 The Chinese inscription on the other side of the vases of figure 1

in many ways. The eggshell quality of these vases is also designed for display,12 and this kind of quality requires highly developed skills and is very expensive. One possible jiachen year is the second year of the reign of Emperor Yongzheng (1724); the next candidate is the 49th year of the Qianlong reign (1784). Unfortunately, there is no record of the birth and death year of Tang Jintang. Nowadays, leading enamellers in Canton enamel workshops are usually in their 40s and 50s. Tang Jintang must have been a skilled and mature craftsman and would have been at least in his 30s when he was summoned to the court workshop in 1741. Hence, he would have been to old to create delicate work such as these vases 43 years later in 1784.13 It is more reasonable to assume that Tang Jintang was in his 30s when he enamelled the vases in 1724, and was in his 50s when he was selected for the court workshop.

The inscription jiachen huazhao xieyu zhujiang jingshe (‘painted on the day of the Flower Festival during the year jiachen in a beautiful house on the Pearl River’) also appears on a teacup and saucer in the Rijksmuseum (fig. 3). This inscription is followed by the baishi (‘white stone’) seal. There is a noticeable difference in quality between this cup and saucer and the vases. It is likely that the cup and saucer were not made by Tang Jintang himself, but by his apprentice or subsequent imitators. There is a porcelain dish inscribed with lingnan huizhe (‘a painter from Canton’) in the British Museum.14 The dish also has the baishi seal. The style of handwriting in the inscription parallels that on the teacup and saucer. The quality and decoration of the British Museum dish and the

Rijksmuseum teacup and saucer is similar as well. DownloadedThe baishi from sealBrill.com09/24/2021 is also 06:10:50PM via free access 57 seen on some Canton enamelled metal objects. For instance, a baishi seal appears on an enamelled copper bowl with a cover in the Victoria and Albert Museum.15 This seal is almost identical to the one on the Rijksmuseum teacup and saucer, but the handwriting of the inscription on this copper bowl is different. The baishi seal is also found on other enamelware and porcelain that were made over a long period. It may have been a workshop mark or the alias of the artists who originally designed these decorative motifs.

The ladies motif

The decoration on the two vases in Rijksmuseum is one variant of the ‘ladies motif’. Most of these porcelain objects with the ladies motif,

Fig. 3 Teacup and Saucer, porcelain, tea cup: h. 3.6 cm d. 6.8 cm, saucer: h. 1.7 cm d. 10.9 cm, China, 18th century, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, inv.no. AK-NM 12028-3

Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 06:10:50PM via free access 58 especially these dishes with a ruby back, are now in European collections. This phenomenon raises the question of whether this kind of porcelain was mainly made for export. Objects with a similar ladies motif and a plain background are rarely seen in Qing royal family collections (Beijing Palace Museum and Taipei Palace Museum) of the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods. Decorations with figures like the ladies motif were quite popular in the early on porcelain for the domestic market, though the quality of these objects in Western collections far surpasses that of the objects used by ordinary Qing people. At the same time, a similar figural decoration can be found on enamelled copperware. As most of this Canton enamelware with the ladies motif exists in Western collections, it may suggest that these motifs were primarily used on export wares or at least were preferred by Western merchants who came to China at that time.

Conclusion

Although hardly recorded in Chinese classical texts, the Canton enamellers played a vital role in the exchange of techniques between the Qing court, Jingdezhen and Canton. Tang Jintang himself is the earliest Canton enameller whose work is known to modern scholars. The two vases in the Rijksmuseum are marvellous specimens of enamelled Chinese porcelain in European collections, and might also be the earliest identified examples of porcelain decorated in Canton. With their delicate decoration and rich textual information, these two porcelain objects set the standards for the dating and identification of other enamelled porcelain products, as well as of Canton copper enamelware.

• Gao Yang is a Ph.D. candidate in the Fine Arts department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). She also works as student research assistant in the Art Museum of CUHK. She specialises in . Her Ph.D. thesis is on Canton enamelled porcelain for the American market.

references

Xuelei Guo and Zhen Xie, Zhongxi jiaorong: caihuatang cangwenzhangci xuancui [Cultural and Commercial Exchanges Between China and the West: A Collection of Chinese Armorial Porcelain from Caihua Tang], Cultural Relics Publishing House, Beijing, 2016. R.L. Hobson, ‘A Note on Canton Enamel’, The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 117 (1912), pp. 165-167. David Sanctuary Howard, The Choice of the Private Trader: The Private Market in Chinese Export Porcelain Illustrated in the Hodroff Collection, Zwemmer, London, 1994. [exh. cat. of the Leo and Doris Hodroff collection organised by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts] Christiaan J.A. Jörg, ‘Chinese Enamelled Copper for Export: some Dutch Documentation’, in: Luísa Vinhais and Jorge Welsh (eds.), China of all Colors: Painted Enamels on Copper, Jorge Welsh Research and Publishing, London, 2015, pp. 39-49. [exh. cat.] Christiaan Jörg, Jan van Campen, in the Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: The Ming and Qing Dynasties, Philip Wilson, London, 1997. Daniël François Lunsingh Scheurleer, Chinese Export Porcelain: Chine de Commande, Faber and Faber, London, 1974. Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 06:10:50PM via free access Pauline Lunsingh Scheurleer (ed.), Asiatic Art in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 59 Meulenhoff/Landshoff, Amsterdam, 1985. Ching-Fei Shih, Radiant Luminance: The Painted Enamelware of the Qing Imperial Court, , Taipei, 2012. Luísa Vinhais and Jorge Welsh (eds.), China of all Colors: Painted Enamels on Copper, Jorge Welsh Research and Publishing, London, 2015. [exh. cat.]

notes

* My field trip to the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam was supported by a Hop Wai Short Term Research Grant, Institute of Chinese Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. 1 The flower festival refers to the 12th (or 15th) day of the second month in the Chinese lunar calendar. 2 The R. Albuquerque collection is an important private Brazilian collection. Part of the collection was in the exhibition Global by Design: Chinese Ceramics from the R. Albuquerque Collection (2016), in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, NY. 3 Vinhais and Welsh 2015: 23. 4 Qianlong liunian qiyue ershiri yuehaiguan jiandu zhengwusai you jin huafalangren […] shiyue shijiuri Canton huafalangren zenglian tangjintang lihuilin zhi falangchu xiaoli (‘On the 20th day of the 7th month, in the 6th year of the Qianlong reign, Administrator of the Canton Customs Zheng Wusai sent for a Canton enameller […] On the 19th day of the 10th month Canton enamellers Zeng Lian, Tang Jintang, and Li Huilin were sent to serve in the enamel workshop’). See qingneiwufu zaobanchu ge zuocheng huoji dang, vol. 3395, the 2nd day of 11th month in the 6th year of the Qianlong reign. 5 Yongzheng liunian qiyue shier ri[…]langzhong hai wang feng yiqinwang yu[…] zaobanchu shouzhu de liaonei yuebaise songhuase you duoshao shumu erdeng chaming hui wo zhidao gei nianxiyao shaoci yong […] (‘On the 12th day of the 7th month, in the 6th year of Qianlong reign […] langzhong [a title] Haiwang under the command of Pince Yi: […] Among the material in the storage of court workshop, how much of the colour of moon white and the colour of pine pollen [yellow] is left? Let me know when you find it out. Send [the materials] to Nian Xiyao [the highest officer in the porcelain workshop of Jingdezhen] to decorate porcelain’). See Qinggong nei wu fu zaobanchu danganhuizong, vol. 3, the 7th month of the 6th year of the Yongzheng reign. 6 Shih 2012: 85. 7 Jörg 2015: 48. 8 Information provided by Joseph Tso (personal communication, Hong Kong, 2016). Mr. Tso is the product manager of Yuet Tung China Works in Hong Kong. The Tso family had run a Canton enamel business for generations and moved from Canton to Hong Kong in 1928. 9 Hobson 1912: 166. 10 Lunsingh Scheurleer 1974: 214, also in Jörg and Van Campen 1997: 212. 11 Yongzheng (1678-1735) was the fifth emperor of the Qing dynasty. Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799) was Yongzheng’s son. 12 Howard 1994: 33. 13 Guo 2016: 42. 14 Franks.689.+ 15 FE.47-1970.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 06:10:50PM via free access