Mounted Oriental Porcelain by SIR FRANCIS WATSON Formerly Director of the Wallace Collection, London
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Mounted Oriental Porcelain by SIR FRANCIS WATSON Formerly Director of the Wallace Collection, 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 porcelains. 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 Naples middle of the century Chinese (Plate 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 celadon 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 Dresden 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.