Mounted Oriental by SIR FRANCIS WATSON Formerly Director of the , London

Some ten years ago I organised stones, glass etc. have been such unfamiliar material. Even what I believe to have been the mounted in this way in the course three centuries later we sec this first exhibition ever to have been of European history. Indeed the clearly from an entry in the held of Chinese porcelain in metal practice seems to be deeply rooted inventory of the treasures belonging mounts of European design. It was in man’s nature even outside to the due d’Anjou, brother of shown in New York in the galleries Europe. At Knossos Sir Arthur King Charles V of France and a of the China Institute in America. I Evans excavated an early Egyptian famous art collector, drawn up in was asked to speak at the dinner faience cup which had been given a 1379/80: given to mark the opening of the gold setting almost two millenia ‘Item 714. Une ecuelle d’une pierre exhibition which was attended before the Christian era; and in the appellee pourcelaine . . largely by members of the Institute, Soshoin treasury at Nara in Japan (Item 714. A dish of a stone called most of them connoisseurs and there is a blue glass vessel, porcelain . . .) collectors of oriental . I probably of Sassanian origin, opened my speech by saying: ‘I mounted as a goblet on a foot of Such a description makes it clear imagine most of you here this Tang silver in 8th century China as how rare and unfamiliar the evening think I have organised an a present to the ruler of Japan. material was at this date. We may exhibion of desecrated Chinese Such things were set in mounts of therefore be certain that this porcelain’. There were no audible precious metal as a tribute to their strange, hard, white, translucent sounds of dissent from the rarity and strange exotic character, material caused the greatest assembled company. I am quite much as jewels have been given sensation when it first appeared in sure that most serious students of settings of gold from the earliest the West, especially when we Far Eastern porcelains regard the times. remember that for all practical idea of setting them in metal purposes, no porcelain of any sort mounts of Western design as a total Today when one can get on a was manufactured in Europe before destruction of their aesthetic plane in London or New York and the 18th century. It is hardly qualities. I remember that great find oneself in Hong Kong or surprising therefore that porcelain but today forgotten collector of Beijing within little more than was thought to be some sort of Chinese porcelain, the late Leonard twelve hours it is difficult to precious or semi-precious stone Gow, telling me over fifty years imagine how distant China was when it first made its appearance ago that if he ever bought a piece until quite recently and how rare in the West and, as such, was of porcelain with such mounts he and exotic anything coming from deemed worthy of being mounted immediately tore them off and China seemed in the West. In spite in gold or silver like a jewel. In threw them away. As an admirer of of this some sort of intermittent fact the entry describing the due mounted porcelain I consoled contact with the Celestial Empire d’Anjou’s piece of porcelain quoted myself with the thought that since had existed from remote antiquity. above goes on to describe how the he specialised in collecting Almost two thousand years ago the ‘ecuclle’ was mounted in gilt silver enamelled wares of the Jamille rose Emperor Claudius was complaining and enamelled with the coats of and the famille verte, the mounts of the excessively large sums that arms of its European owner. were probably merely pastiches Roman ladies were paying for silk made in the 19th century, for such for their dresses. Over the course of The duke’s dish has of course, long porcelains were hardly ever centuries China has taught the since vanished or become totally mounted at earlier periods. West much: the cultivation of silk unidentifiable from the loss of its worms, for example, or the mounts. Only one piece from this In this article I hope to trace manufacture of paper. Perhaps remote period has survived in briefly the history of the practice of even printing itself. identifiable form into the modern mounting porcelain in Europe, the world. This is the so-called various purposes for which it was We do not know when the first Gaignicres-Beckford vase. done, and to try to explain that the examples of oriental porcelain Unhappily its mounts which technique has an aesthetic of its reached Europe. There is some survived down to well on in the own. reason to suppose occasional pieces 19th century have vanished arrived as early as the 11 th century mysteriously today though their A large variety of rare and exotic but there is a problem here over appearance was carefully recorded objects, not only of porcelain but of the interpretation of documents. by two of its early owners. This rock crystal, semi-precious hard There was no word to describe famous object, a pear shaped bottle

42 of shadow blue Yuan porcelain perspective of trade with China was decorated in pierced relief seems to opened up. No longer would it be have been mounted for King Louis necessary for Chinese goods to the Great of Hungary in 1381 and travel by the slow ‘Silk Road’ presented in that year to Charles across Central Asia or overland III of Durazzo on the occasion of from the Indian Ocean. By the his ascent to the throne of middle of the century Chinese ( 1). The mounts, which were porcelains (and other oriental of silver gilt enamelled with materials) were appearing on the armorial bearings, converted the Lisbon market in some quantity. porcelain vase into a ewer of Before the end of the 16th century European design with a handle and King Phillip II of Spain possessed long spout of metal. At a later date no less than four thousand pieces of it passed into the possession of the Chinese porcelain and the Grand Dauphin, son of Louis XIV collections of other European and a famous collector of Chinese sovereigns and great princes were porcelain (it is fully described in only slightly smaller. Queen the inventory of his porcelain Elizabeth I owned enough to make collection). At a still later date it a fine display on a sideboard when entered into the possession of she gave a great banquet. Roger Gaignieres, a French L. J_J . -L archaeologist deeply interested in II With the foundation of the Dutch French history, and of William 1 The Gaigniercs-Beckford Vase. East Indies Company in 1602 the Bcckford of Fonthill Abbey in Detail from the title-page of J Britton: flow of Chinese goods to the West Wiltshire, one of the greatest of Illustrations, Graphic and Literary, of increased greatly. Several English art collectors. Each of them Fonthill Abbey, Wiltshire, showing the Portuguese and Dutch carracks left a record of its appearance, vase complete with its 1381 silver-gilt and sunk in shallow waters on the Gaignicrcs drawing showing the enamel mounts as displayed at Fonthill return journey from the Orient armorial mounts in the greatest (Private Collection) have been raised to the surface in detail. Although the mounts were recent years. Their cargoes often still attached to the vase when including as many as 20,000 pieces Beckford sold it in 1822 they have of Chinese porcelain, give some vanished today (probably destroyed idea of the size of the trade. Within by some connoisseur of Chinese a few years the Dutch had wrested porcelain) and the vase alone the best of this carrying trade from survives in the National Museum the Portuguese and Antwerp of Ireland. But there can be no replaced Lisbon as the chief market doubt of its identification for the place for porcelain and other holes pierced to take the spout and oriental goods for the better part of the handle are clearly visible (Plate the next two centuries. 2)- Paradoxically this increased flow or The earliest piece of Chinese oriental porcelains to Europe porcelain to survive still complete actually increased its popularity with its mounts of German gilt amongst collectors. Every petty silver is a lidded cup mounted for a prince or nobleman wanted to have certain Count Phillip of his own collection. Many devoted Katzenclbogen shortly before 1453. whole rooms to its display In 1530 Archibishop Warham arranging it in quantity on chimney presented a mounted bowl pieces, overmantels, cornices and to Wadham College, Oxford, where even around skirting boards as well it is still one of the College’s most as on innumerable brackets treasured possessions. But such attached to the walls. Such things remained objects of the displayed collections still survive in greatest rarity until well on in the and a few other German 16th century. 2 The Gaigniercs-Beckford vase as il cities and are illustrated in survives today. This is the vase seen in numerous engravings of the period But with the development of the Plate 1 without the mounts converting it into by Daniel Marot and others. Many sea route to the Far East by the a ewer of European design. (National of these display pieces were Portuguese an entirely fresh Museum of Ireland, Dublin) mounted, for the habit of mounting

43 eastern porcelains was too well- collection of princely curiosities. established to be lightly abandoned. Gilding played a highly important part in the interior Although oriental porcelain was especially in France where the taste collected and mounted in England, for Far Eastern objects was most Holland and the Germanic lands, it fully developed especially in the was in France, the most artistically years following the visits of the sophisticated country in Europe at Siamese ‘ambassadors’ to this period, that the taste for Versailles. The generally white porcelain and lachinagc (as what we painted panelling of the walls was call today was then picked out with gilding on the named) was carried to the greatest carving, clocks, barometers, lengths. In 1671 Louis XIV built a lighting Fittings, candlesticks and small pavilion in the park at candelabra, Fire-dogs, chimney Versailles for his reigning mistress, furnishings and other the beautiful and witty marquise de appurtenances of domestic living Montespan. It was known as the were generally of gilt bronze and Trianon de Porcelains for its exterior most furniture of the period was walls were cased with faience tiles embellished with gilt bronze painted in blue and white in mounts. Porcelain mounted with imitation of Ming porcelain. The gilt bronze not only blended more same scheme of decoration was easily into this type of setting than carried out in the interior of the silver or silver gilt mounts but the building where the walls and the western character of the mounts hangings and upholstery were also 3 Tankard of Chinese blue and white themselves gave a quasi-French of blue and white in the of European design with appearance to the often exotic taste. Unfortunately the faience Dutch silver mounts (Philadelphia Museum shapes of this foreign material. tiles could not stand up to the of Art) Mounted porcelain thus became as rigours of a northern winter and it were absorbed into the the pavilion had to be dismantled rather to adapt it to a contemporary decoration of the contemporary within a few years. The taste for domestic setting. Sometimes this domestic interior. orientalia however, continued was for purely functional purposes unabated. After the visit of two as in the case of the King’s soup In Paris particularly the fashion for ‘embassies’ from Siam (in fact they bowl or as a drinking tankard (Plate everything oriental was encouraged were merely trade delegations and 3), very popular in Holland, but and developed by a group of not diplomatic missions) in 1684 more frequently in a purely traders known as marchands-mercier. and 1686 bringing lavish gifts of decorative role as an ornamental This word is impossible to porcelain, lacquer, textiles for the vase or dish. At the beginning of translate. It is tautological and King and his courtiers at the 18th century porcelain mounts literally translated means Versailles, everything Chinese continued for the most part to be ‘merchant-merchant’. This became the height of fashion at the of silver or silver-gilt (more rarely obfuscation is made more difficult French Court. Even the king was of gold like Louis XIV’s soup to understand because no such accustomed to taking his breakfast bowl). But as the rococo style body of merchants existed in cup of bouillon from a bowl of developed (and architectural England or any other European Chinese porcelain mounted with historians date the inception of the country. The marchands-mercier were handles of gold in the form of style to the last years of the 17th neither artists nor craftsmen. They entwined snakes. Costume balls in century), these precious materials combined the roles of the modern which the guest appeared in were gradually replaced by gilt interior decorator, antique dealer Chinese or pseudo-Chinese bronze. Partly this was for and industrial designer with that of costumes were a regular feature of economic reasons; the First decade the purveyor of the chic and the fashionable life in Paris and at of the 18th century was a period of fashionable. They made nothing Versailles and the number of shops great Financial stringency in themselves but employed a wide specialising in lachinage in the France. Porcelain was reaching variety of different craftsmen to capital multiplied rapidly. Europe in ever increasing quantities carry out their ideas. Diderot, a and mounted porcelains were no contemporary writer, stigmatised The fact that Louis XIV’s bouillon longer the prerogative of kings and them as faiscurs de rien, marchands de bowl was still mounted points to a great princes. There was a lout ’ (makers of nothing, dealers in new aspect of this practice. No widespread demand for its use in a everything). Their true function longer was porcelain mounted as a purely domestic setting and not was as middlemen of taste. They tribute to its extreme rarity but merely as a display object in a thought up ingenious devices for

44 4 Pot-pourri vase of Chinese crackleware porcelain dating from the mid-18th century. The French gilt bronze mounts converting it from a lidded jar to a pot-pourri are struck 6 Candelabra. The figure of Pu Tai Hosang is of Chinese yellow porcelain of the Kangxi with the crowned-C, a tax mark indicating period. It has been adapted as a two light candelabrum by the addition of French gilt bronze they were made between 1745 and 1749. mounts of mid-18th century date enriched by the addition of porcelain flowers probably of (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco) Vincennes porcelain. (Private Collection, New York)

5 Ewer. Baluster-shaped vase of grey-green Chinese celadon porcelain of the Kangxi period converted into a ewer of Western 7 Decorative Group. The figure of Pu Tai Hosang and the cup, both of blanc de Chine design by the addition of French gilt bronze (Fukien) porcelain dating from the first half of the 18th century, have been placed under a richly mounts struck with the crowned-C, thus scrolled rococo arbour of French gilt bronze to which are attached European porcelain flowers, dating them between 1745 and 1749. (The probably from the Vincennes factory. The gilt bronze struck with the crowned-C and thus dating J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu) from 1745 to 1749. (The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore)

45 the decoration of the houses of the To Duvaux’s shop Au Chagrin de Chine or Les Morales de Confucius en rich and fashionable. They devised Turquie in the fashionable rue Cinq Actes and enjoyed a great many ingenious ways of mounting Saint-Honore came all that was popular success. Such beliefs as oriental porcelain, for instance by smartest in Paris society from the these, though based on inverting two matching Chinese King downwards. Mme. de comparatively slender knowledge of bowls one over another and linking Pompadour was one of his most China itself, took so strong a hold them by a pierced band of gilt faithful clients. Hardly a week jn France that in 1756 that most bronze thus forming a pot-pourri passed without her purchasing sceptical monarch Louis XV was (Plate 4) or by converting Chinese some object or other from the shop. even persuaded to plough the first vases into monteiths or flower In the decade covered by the Spring furrow in the park at holders of one sort or another. Or account book she bought no less Versailles in emulation of the by converting them into ewers of than one hundred and fifty pieces fertility rite which had been European design by the addition of of mounted porcelain. Foreign performed each year at the vernal handles and spouts of gilt bronze ambassadors and visiting foreigners equinox by the Emperors of China (Plate 5) as had already been done of distinction like the English Lords from time immemorial. in the middle ages with the Hervey and Bolingbroke visited the Gaignieres-Beckford vase. Some of shop when passing through Paris The widespread popularity of their most attractive devices and made purchases to take back to mounted porcelains as of other Far involved the use of figures of England with them. Eastern artifacts like lacquer, orientals, pagods or magots as they textiles and wall-paper, had been were then called, to form standishes Literally hundreds of pieces of greatly encouraged, as we have or candelabra (Plate 6) or perfume mounted porcelains of every sort seen, by the rise of the rococo style burners. Often too, they would are recorded in Duvaux’s sales with its use of cuvilinear lines, combine the figures with porcelain ledger. This was, to a great extent, asymmetry and non-central flowers (a new fashionable product a tribute to the success with which perspective. This had been sparked of the porcelain factory) the marchand-mercier had adapted the off initially by the sight of the simply as something decorative or exotic character of oriental Siamese ‘ambassadors’ with their amusing to stand on a side table or porcelain to Parisian taste in strange exotic costumes arriving at chimney piece (Plate 7). interior decoration. Chinese art Versailles with a wealth of oriental itself had contributed to the presents for the king and his By good fortune the sales ledger or development of the rococo style. courtiers. Around 1760 a new Uvre-joumal of one of the most Not only did its curving lines echo excitement stirred the fashionable famous of these marchands-mercier, the curvilinear character of rococo world. This was awakened by the Lazare Duvaux, has survived to decoration but the use of striking evidence of life in classical this day and provides us with a asymmetry and non-European antiquity being brought to light by vast amount of information about perspective so typical of all Chinese the excavations of the ancient cities mounted porcelains (and other art certainly accustomed western of Pompeii and Herculaneum. This things) that he sold. This includes eyes to these salient features of the brought visions of a world quite as the prices of such mounted objects rococo style. But there was more unfamiliar as the Celestial Empire as well as the price of porcelains than mere aesthetic reasons for the and totally different. Knowledge of and the mounts. The names of rage for things Chinese which daily life in ancient Rome had innumerable people who bought prevailed in all Europe throughout hitherto rested only on the evidence mounted porcelain (almost the greater part of the 18th supplied by literature and surviving everyone in fashionable Parisian century. The passion had a more sculpture. Now the minutest details Society) and occasionally (but only serious than mere social fashion. of the daily life of the classical very rarely) the names of the Voltaire, the most widely world with its domestic equipment craftsmen who actually made the influential moralist of the period was suddenly being revealed by mounts. The sales ledger covers the taught that the Chinese Empire was excavation all in a remarkable state years 1748 to 1758, just the years far better and more rationally ruled • of preservation in the lava and dust when the taste for mounted than any European country and thrown up by the eruption of porcelains was at its height. In that Confucianism was really a Vesuvius in A.D. 79. addition the ledger makes it clear form of Christianity purged of the that for the most part it was only obtuse accretions added to its With this interest in Antiquity taste the cheaper types of export ware original form by ecclesiastics over naturally began to turn from the which were mounted, mostly the centuries. Indeed he came close sinuous lines, odd perspectives and or blue and white to claiming that the Confucian asymmetry of the rococo to the porcelains. The richly decorated Analects were the Chinese severely rectangular lines of enamelled wares were rarely equivalents of the Christian classical architecture. 1 his led to a exported and even more rarely Beatitudes. Voltaire’s most popular decline and ultimately to the death mounted. play was entitled L ’Orphelin de la of the taste for mounted oriental

46 time, mounts of neo-classic design decorative art came in 1882 with seldom blended so well with the Hamilton Palace sale when six Chinese porcelain as had the successive lots of French furniture sinuous rhythms of the rococo (Plate fetched prices which, having regard 8). With the coming of the French to the changed value of money, far Revolution whose ideas and exceeded anything which has been philosophy were so often based on paid in the sale rooms in recent those of Roman republicanism this years. In the following year at the reaction of taste was heightened. Leyboume-Popham sale a single The philosophy of Confucianism no celadon vase with rococo mounts of longer appealed as it had done half gilt bronze fetched the surprising a century earlier. In addition, as price of £2,415 which constituted the Revolution developed, there for many years an auction record. was a violent reaction against With such a demand from anything which seemed to smack of collectors the reproducer and the the hated ancien regime. It was to be forger began to appear, for what many years before the taste for had survived from the 18th century mounted porcelain was to return was insufficient to meet into fashion. requirements. Some of the pastiches produced in Paris in the later years Although a small amount of of the 19th century are of oriental porcelain was mounted, remarkably high quality and by no almost always with mounts of means easy to distinguish from inferior quality, during the reign of genuine 18th century pieces. 8 Urn. Formed from the cut-down neck of Louis-Philippe it was only with the Indeed a number of such a trumpet shaped vase of Chinese green return into fashion of 18th century reproductions have found their way porcelain of the Kangxi period. The mounts decorative art in the later years of into museums as genuine objects. It of French gilt bronze of markedly neo-classic the Second Empire that a has even been suggested that the design date from around 1775 to 1785 (The widespread demand for furniture record breaking mounted vase Detroit Institute of Art) and decorative objects of the 18th which appeared in the Leybourne- century and with it a demand for Popham sale had been made, not mounted porcelains, again awoke. necessarily with any intention to porcelain. Although such porcelains The high water mark of this deceive, less than a decade before continued to be mounted for a revived interest in dix-huitieme its appearance in the sale rooms.

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