A Collection of Silver-Gilt Mounted Porcelains

The glorious Howzer Cup, a masterpiece of craftsmanship, consists of a Chinese brush pot, ca. 1630-50, mounted in England, ca. 1660-70, probably by the Swiss goldsmith Wolfgang Howzer. I especially love the hounds on the lid and handles. Image courtesy the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Today, with the help of the venerable V & A Museum Collection, I have assembled for you a collection of beautiful Chinese and Japanese porcelains, all featuring silver gilt mounts. Just imagine how exotic these porcelains would have seemed to 16th century Europeans. Asian porcelain pieces decorated with underglaze blue began to arrive in England in the 1560s, amid great speculation as to the nature of the mysterious material. Some people speculated that it was a precious stone, or perhaps made from crushed sea shells. Understandably, the owners of such high-status objects went to great trouble to enhance the value of their porcelains even more by commissioning elaborate silver-gilt mounts for them. I suppose when we take great care in framing an important painting, we continue this tradition in some small way. 

A Japanese Imari cup, mounted in France ca. 1720. This is the watercolor illustration I did for September, from our 2013 desk calendar. From the Victoria and Albert Museum Collection.

Asian porcelains were also enormously popular in France. When Siamese ambassadors visited Versailles in 1686, King Louis XVI himself received the delegation, and fueled a fever for all things Asian, bringing porcelains like the Japanese Imari piece above to the height of fashion. 

A Chinese ewer, ca. 1560-86 with later English silver-gilt mounts.
Image courtesy the V & A Museum.

Asian porcelain was so sought after in Europe, that objects of lesser quality, like the one above, were treated to the same gilt-mounting treatment as finer pieces. Porcelains like this ewer were made in large quantities in the southern city of Jingdezhen for local use and export alike. In 1557, according to the V & A, the Portuguese began to deal in porcelain in Macau, and although the vast majority of pieces went to Lisbon, the English pirates did what they could to increase the flow of these objects to England. The ewer may be rustic, but it still has a certain charm, don't you think?

The Trenchard bowl, Chinese porcelain
painted in underglaze blue, with English silver-gilt mounts.
Image courtesy the V & A Museum.

The Trenchard bowl, shown above, was featured in our 2011 calendar, and has an interesting history. From the V & A: "By tradition this bowl was a gift from Philip the Fair, Duke of Burgundy (1478-1506) and his wife Joanna 'the Mad' to Sir Thomas Trenchard of Wolverton, Dorset, in gratitude for his hospitality after their ship was wrecked off Weymouth in 1506. In fact, we can tell from the date of the mounts and of the porcelain that it reached England much later, during Elizabeth I's reign (1558-1603), probably as part of a load of porcelain seized from a Spanish ship." 

A Chinese porcelain cup, ca. 1573-85, with later English mounts, marked 1585.
Image courtesy the V & A Museum.

Having trained as a metalsmith, I'm amazed by the ingenious buckle-like mechanisms used to attach these fanciful metal armatures to the delicate porcelains. Like the exotic natural crystals, coconut shells and sea shells that were similarly "enhanced", these pieces of porcelain would certainly have made impressive additions to cabinets of curiosities. Wouldn't it have been wonderful to have been there to see them?! 

Porcelain of the K'ang-hsi Period

The February 2013 desk calendar illustration: a porcelain jar and cover, 1661-1722, China

 

Today I'd like to share another watercolor painting I did for for our 2013 desk calendar, which depicts a stunning Chinese blue and white porcelain jar and cover from the reign of K'ang-hsi, 1661-1722. With so much mass-produced junk on the market, some may feel blue and white porcelains are uninteresting ubiquitous. I feel, however, that antique blue and white porcelains from Asia and Europe are so finely made and have such interesting histories, that perhaps a little background information on this exquisite art form and the ruling emperor of the period will restore the magic...

 

A porcelain charger from the K'ang-hsi period

 

According to Jeffrey Munger and Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Chinese porcelains were introduced into Europe in the fourteenth century, and were regarded as extremely rare and luxurious objects. "By the early sixteenth century—after Portugal established trade routes to the Far East and began commercial trade with Asia—Chinese potters began to produce objects specifically for export to the West and porcelains began to arrive in some quantity...The porcelains were often stored at the lowest level of the ships, both to provide ballast and because they were impervious to water, in contrast to the even more expensive tea stored above. The blue-and-white dishes that comprised such a significant proportion of the export porcelain trade became known as kraak porcelain, the term deriving from the Dutch name for caracca, the Portuguese merchant ship. Characteristic features of kraak dishes were decoration divided into panels on the wide border, and a central scene depicting a stylized landscape." (You may notice that these features are indeed visible on the lidded jar in my  painting above.)

 

A grouping of K'ang-hsi miniatures

 

Mr. Munger and Ms. Frelinghuysen continue, "Porcelain decorated only in blue pigment painted under the glaze dominated the export trade until the very end of the seventeenth century...With the appearance of porcelain factories in Europe in the early eighteenth century, the demand for Chinese export porcelain began to diminish, and by the second half of the century the trade was in serious decline... New geographical markets, however, revitalized the export porcelain industry. Following the nation's newfound independence in 1784, America officially entered into trade with China. Consistent with European trade, American agents in China expedited special orders for clients... By the late nineteenth century, Chinese export porcelains, especially blue-and-white ware, had achieved a status in this country above the merely utilitarian. Looked upon with nostalgia, they became emblematic of the colonial era."

 

The young K'ang-hsi Emperor

From Jonathan Spence of  Yale, we learn about the fascinating K'ang-hsi Emperor himself: "Hsüan-yeh, born in 1654, reigned from 1661 to 1722 as the K'ang-hsi Emperor. He was one of China's greatest rulers, and his reign was not only the longest but also one of the most vibrant and complex in the history of imperial China. Though he could be callous or negligent at times, and made errors of judgment, he possessed a self-analytical acuity and a sense of imperial mission that mark him as one of those rare individuals who, by acts of will, change the course of human history. It has not escaped the notice of numerous historians – Chinese, Japanese, and Western – that his reign coincided chronologically with those of Tsar Peter the Great in Russia and King Louis XIV in France, and that the three shared certain common characteristics that marked perhaps the apogee of traditional kingship in pre-industrial societies."

The K'ang-hsi Emperor in court dress,



Tsar Peter the Great,

 

and King Louis XIV-- three peas in a pod.



"Any emperor of China was, of course, merely one individual, occupying a special position within his society but unable to comprehend all that society's ramifications. Also, the actions and thoughts ascribed to him were often those of others, of relatives, courtiers, eunuchs, bureaucrats. Therefore we must be cautious about seeing the ruler as the reign, of narrowing our own vision to the emperor's own. Nevertheless, the K'ang-hsi Emperor acted decisively in so many matters, and took so great an interest in affairs of governance and of culture, that his actions and his personality serve as a valid entry point for comprehending the myriad elements that led to the consolidation of Ch'ing rule."

 

From the series: The Cambridge History of China

Volume 9 Part 1Part one: The Ch'ing Empire to 1800
Chapter TitleChapter 3: The K'ang-hsi Reign
Publication Date2002
AuthorJonathan D. Spence

Jonathan Spence is also the author of a highly regarded biography of K'ang-hsi entitled  Emperor of China: Self-Portrait of K'ang-hsi. It is widely available through online booksellers, with an ISBN as follows: 978-0679720744. I just ordered one myself!

If your curiosity has been piqued, you may  also enjoy this link to a very interesting YouTube documentary video on the history of Chinese porcelains:

                                                      http://youtu.be/LZSHq95fug4

And as always, you are most welcome to visit www.parvumopus.com to see all of our 2013 calendar motifs.