Chinese thinker and social philosopher Confucius, 551BC - 479BC

Of late, ‘tis true, quite sick of Rome and Greece
We fetch our models from the wise Chinese;
European artists are too cool and chaste,
For Mand’rin is the only man of taste…

On ev’ry shelf a Joss divinely stares,
Nymphs laid on chintzes sprawl upon our chairs;
While o’er our cabinets Confucius nods,
Midst porcelain elephants and China Gods *

According to an old Chinese adage “Knowledge comes from seeing much” a particularly relevant comment for those studying art, especially ceramics, which became known to the wider world from the Tang Dynasty (618- 907) onward. The word ‘China’ eventually became the generic name for porcelain, so successfully had its potential as an export trade ware been exploited by the west at the end of the nineteenth century.

The enthusiasm the English, European and American trade market displayed for oriental goods from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries inspired the invention of porcelain in the west. It also established the whimsical stylistic language known as Chinoiserie, which affected designs for architecture, interiors and gardens as Europeans fantasized about what China might be like.

Blanc de Chine - Ming Period. Surely the most beautiful of all Chinese ceramics are its most simple

For the most part using the dating period of Chinese Dynasties, or the ruling period of an Emperor to assign dates to Chinese ceramic wares and their development, is more than difficult. At all stages during their stylistic and technical development there was a good deal of overlapping and copying of a previous dynasty’s designs.

Reproducing what had gone before at first was not a commercial objective, it was all about an intention to honour ancestors. However as time passed and China opened up completely to the commercialism and corruption of the west, that would, and did change.

Ding Ware Northern Song Dynasty - The unobtrusive decoration is of incised lotus and sagittaria sprays that is incised into the body that has been ennobled by a mellow ivory-white glaze and the rim is protected by a metal cap 11th - 12th century

Founded upon a prosperous economy, the Tang Empire witnessed a great flowering of creativity; science and technology, art, music, painting, pottery, calligraphy, literature and religion – it was a golden age. Chinese potters discovered that when stone wares were fired at higher temperatures they changed their characteristics. The progression to what are now regarded as wares made from ‘true porcelain’ was a gradual process.

During the reign of the Tudors in England, when the west first accessed wares made of so- called ‘hard paste, or true porcelain’ in any quantity, it was entirely seduced by them. They were magically translucent, resonant when struck, impervious to liquid, considered refined and aesthetically pleasing in both proportion and style, as well as having great beauty of form.

The material used was a fusion of fine white ‘china clay’ [kaolin, named for the hill in China called Ko-ling where it was discovered] and powdered feldspathic rock [petuntse], which when fired together at an intense heat [about 1450° C] producing a new type of ware that would completely captivate the rest of the world for centuries.

From the beginning of the ceramic industry in China to set up a large kiln there needed to be plenty of natural quantities of heavy clay, plenty of natural fuel to power the kiln, including water and, a cost effective way of taking the products to a ready market. Once a kiln had been installed generations of artisans flourished with each area becoming renowned for the style and techniques of decorating the wares they developed.

A kiln atmosphere heavily charged with carbon monoxide is termed ‘reducing’. Its effect is to profoundly modify colours yielded by certain metallic oxides, particularly iron and copper. Chinese potters achieved the desired concentration of carbon monoxide by feeding their furnaces wet wood. The dexterity and skill of the potters in controlling the way that a glaze was fired also meant they were able to crackle it deliberately.

This style of decoration more than likely came about at first by accident. However the potters found the effect so aesthetically pleasing in every way that they spent a great deal of time learning how to bring it about intentionally. This was achieved by using the differing coefficients of contraction and expansion and by also submitting the piece to rapid cooling after the firing. The results were magical.

Northern Song (960-1127) 11th century Porcelain-like stoneware with céladon feldspathic glaze H: 20.5 cm Musée Guimet

Beginning with the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.) and during the Tang (618-907 A.D.) Sung (960-1279 A.D.) Yuan (1279-1368 A.D.) and Ming (1368-1644 A.D.) dynasties large quantities of pottery and porcelain were exported from China to the eastern and western world.

There are many romantic attributions for the term Celadon. It became a generic term for ceramics finished with a glaze ranging in colour from olive-green to sea-green. It was first developed as a protective coating for stoneware but on porcelain the colour took on all sorts of different tonal qualities.

Celadons from China were highly sought after by the Persians during the Northern Song Dynasty 960-1112 because they believed that they would break, or change colour if poisoned food was placed in them. At a court where suspicion and fear reigned, they collected them avidly.

The Chinese learned about Islam’s religious and cultural bans on the representation of human and animal figures and so, servicing their customers well, they provided floral designs to sell in Middle Eastern markets.

The Chinese dynasty known as Ming seems relatively near and modern in the long context of Chinese history. In 1368 when it began, many of its scholars considered that the supreme periods of the major arts, such as literature, calligraphy and painting had already passed.

In the European experience the word Ming is almost inseparable from porcelain, which was beginning to arrive in the west in increasing quantities. However it was considered by the Chinese of the Ming period only one of its minor arts. The use of cobalt as a blue colouring agent was considerably developed in connection with porcelain wares in China from the Yuan Dynasty (1260-1368) onward.

Blue and White Plate Yuan Dynasty 1279 - 1368

The artist who painted a fish swimming through aquatic plants on this very early plate proved his worth at managing cobalt decoration by rendering the scene with great skill, dexterity and vitality.

It was during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) that the use of cobalt oxide reached a crescendo in painting, style and technique. Cobalt has an ancient history and was well known as a colouring agent in other centres such as Persia, Syria and Egypt at least 2000 years before Christ.

Native minerals on their own had impurities and that resulted in a dull or greyish colour, producing often an unstable patchy blue which was termed, heaped and piled decoration.

It became one of the main characteristics of Ming blue and white. Hui hui Ch’ing or Mohammedan Blue exhibited very rich colour when mixed with a native material discovered at this time. It had a distinct tendency to run when used on its own and the porcelain painters needed to be quick with brush strokes that were very deft and sure.

Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) Mid 14th century Porcelain with cobalt blue decoration H:33.6 cm

The Ming period in China [1368 to 1644]  is considered by many historians as the last great dynasty that was truly Chinese. From the middle of the seventeenth century when Chinese influence on western culture really began to intensify, it was ruled by the Manchus. They invaded from Manchuria (north eastern China) and were considered by the mainstream population, the Han Chinese, as usurpers.

A typical mei p’ing vase was used to display blossom branches brought indoors in the warmth and forced into blossom for the celebration of New Year. It has a baluster body and is high shouldered with a small mouth. New Year was a very important festival that generally fell around February, or late winter in the Northern Hemisphere.

Blue & White Jar Ming dynasty, Xuande mark and period (1426-1435)

There was a resurgence of Chinese nationalism during the Ming Dynasty, when the ancient barrier between East and West was reaffirmed. By far and away the most splendid wares of the Ming period were made for the Imperial Court, as well as the more exacting home markets of China. To quote Hobson, an English authority on Chinese ceramics ‘Ming shapes are often distinguished by a certain rugged simplicity, and always by the directness and strength of an art, which is still young and virile’.

Ming porcelain generally has a fine grain body is white in colour and tinged buff on the unglazed footring. Thick glazes are often slightly uneven, with a bluish tinge due to traces of iron which also confer the buff colour on the footring.

The texture of the glaze surface exhibits what the Chinese call ‘chicken skin’ which looks like a series of irregular ‘pinholes’ in the glazes surface. This is only a general rule, however to which there are always exceptions.

Jar Ming Period of Emperor Jiajing 1521 to 1567

The most prized of Ming period porcelains were made in the Hsuan Té period (1426-1435) noted for the brilliance of its painting in cobalt blue and copper red under the glaze.

Potters mastered both of these capricious materials, ensuring that the wares reached a high standard of technical and decorative achievement.

Copper red particularly, was very difficult to control and they eventually abandoned it for an iron red enamel glaze painted over the glaze.

Rim of Imperial Yellow and Cobalt Blue Plate

Yellow glazes in various nuances appeared in the late Ming period and continued until the nineteenth century.

The use of Imperial yellow during the reign of the Emperor Xuande (1426-35) was based on iron, was very brilliant and served as a ground colour for a design painted in blue under the glaze.

Flora [plants and trees generally] are also used very widely in the decoration of porcelain in the Far East, and there is an elaborate symbolism attached to most of them. Eg. The seasons are represented by the prunus [Winter], the tree peony [Spring], the lotus [Summer], and the chrysanthemum [Autumn].

The most important innovation during the reign of Ch’eng Hua (1465-1487) was the introduction of the tou ts’ai or contrasting colours. These were a combination of underglaze blue with other enamel colours, the latter laid on top of the glaze within the outlines of the underglaze blue.

So-called Chicken Cup

Excellent examples of this particular group are the so-called ‘chicken cups’, which became very popular especially when they were copied again during the eighteenth century, which can be a trap for new collectors. When assessing the dating of porcelain there is more than style and colour to be considered.

Portugal was considered one of the most adventurous of the European sea faring nations and it reached China in 1517. From Macao they traded Chinese, and other Asian goods for spices in Europe. The Society of Jesus founded at Rome in 1534 also sent missionaries to East Asia.

From the 1540’s onward the Jesuit Priest Matteo Ricci, along with his colleagues who had gone to China learned its main languages, mastered the canon of classic Confucian texts, dressed as mandarins and demonstrated to Chinese intellectuals that the west had far superior skills in some areas, which the Chinese recognized as vital, like cartography and astronomy.

Burghley Bowl

When Emperor Wan Li, the last ruler of the Ming Dynasty sat on the Throne of Heaven ruling over the Middle Kingdom in the Forbidden City from 1573 to 1620 in England Elizabeth 1 was contending with Mary Queen of Scots and many other thorny issues. The earliest accurate record we have of Ming porcelain in the west was pieces specified in the will of Elizabeth 1.

From the inventory compiled following her death, we can deduce they were highly prized and very precious, like the bowl belonging to the Cecil family of Burghley who served the Queen well.

It was the year 1600 when Queen Elizabeth 1 of England granted a Charter for her seafarers to challenge the Portuguese monopoly of the spice trade followed by the Dutch Vereenigde Oost-indische Compagnie 1602 and the French Compagnie des Indes Orientales) 1664. By the middle of the seventeenth century a lively trade for lacquer, silk and other small objects to European Courts was in full swing.

Porcelain painted in underglaze blue and overglaze polychrome enamels.

An important innovation was the appearance of the so-called ‘Wucai’ (five colour) decoration during the Jiajing period (1522-1566). A method was developed where cobalt blue was painted under the glaze and then after being fired the potters then overpainted the glaze with polychrone enamels before firing it a second time. Fish were often used because they were an important symbol for wealth.

By the late Ming Period c1573-1644 there were new developments in the ancient arts of calligraphy and painting. In the Songjiang and Jiaxing regions the literati strove to surmount petty struggles by devoting themselves to creative artistic activities. They did this by concentrating on heightening an awareness of the individual, his position in the world and relationship with his fellowman. This led to a simultaneous blossoming of all the art forms. Through mutual discussion and creative interaction the works they produced attained a high level of artistic merit, tinged with extreme, poetic elegance that reflected a healthy attitude toward art and society.

The years surrounding the fall of the Ming dynasty and the founding of the Qing dynasty in China were uncertain and foreign trade suffered.

The first Manchu Emperor Kangxi (1662-1722), was a patron of classical studies, a poet and calligrapher. He was also vigorous and reforming and during his reign China’s exports and industries, boomed. In 1682 he ordered the reconstruction of the kilns at Jingdezhen, partly destroyed during the early troubled years of the dynasty.

From the beginning of the seventeenth century trade with Cathay (China) was always, seemingly, far more important to Europeans than it was to Chinese rulers who prided themselves on their nation’s self-sufficiency. It is often said Ming wares lacked the precise finish of the porcelains of the later Ch’ing dynasty. However they were made to cope with the hazards of transport by ship, or camel caravan and their continuing appeal has meant a demand ever since by both European and Asian collectors and connoisseurs.

Taking Tea in Fine Style

Charles II was restored to the throne in England in 1660 with the accompanying surge in, and a delight of, new fashions. He and his wife Catherine of Bragazna would set a style for the taking of tea.

Taking tea was first recorded in 1660 in the diary of English Naval Administrator and Member for Parliament Samuel Pepys who sent for his first cup of this ‘China drinke’…and in the most well to do families, tea was drunk in the Chinese manner out of Chinese porcelain.

A typical feature of Kanxi porcelain was the paste, which was often sandy and gritty on the surface and on the glaze. Painting in cobalt reached new heights of artistic and technical achievement, the colour having an almost luminescence quality while the techniques attached to rendering the decoration both over, and under the glaze, were further refined.with an assorted assemblage of wares used for the ceremony and in England imports of tea alone multiplied 40 times between 1723 and 1830.

sang de beouf vase with over painted decoration

During the reign of Emperor Kangxi technological advances allowed for splendid decorated and coloured wares.  A rich blood-red glaze was developed using copper oxide in the formula and then firing the wares in a smoky, reducing atmosphere. This method was highly unpredictable, and the result by no means a foregone conclusion. It still is so today, red glazes are the bane of any potter’s existence.

Ming emperors were highly discerning, and anything not measuring up to their expectations was rejected. A literal mountain of rejected and wasted pieces exists outside of Jingdezhen where what were considered the best of the kilns were sited. Contemporary archaeologists have had a field day. This red glaze is sometimes known as ‘sang de beouf’ (literally, blood of the ox in French).

A description of the manufacture of porcelain written in 1713, by French Jesuit priest Father D’ Entrecolles a resident in Peking at that time describes the seeming magic connected with the firing of blue and white porcelain ‘a beautiful blue colour appears on the porcelain after having been lost for some time. When the colour is first painted on, it is pale black; when it is dry and the glaze has been put on it, it disappears entirely and the porcelain seems quite white, the colour being buried under the glaze. But the fire makes it appear in all its beauty, almost in the same way as the natural heat of the sun makes the most beautiful butterflies, with all their tints, come out of their eggs’

In 1731 a fifteen year monopoly was granted for a Swedish East India Company to trade in the East. By that time Chinese officials were realizing the monetary potential of Europe’s expanding interest and they started to increase the access of increasing numbers of European traders to their wares. Porcelain gradually became the largest, and most desirable of all Chinese wares and was shipped in bulk and great variety. It was packed into tubs and wooden boxes cushioned with rice or other marketable goods such as pepper, sago, or tea and packed tightly into the bottom of the ships for ballast.

A Fleet of East India men at Sea by Nicholas Pocock 1802

The so-called China Trade would flourish for two centuries. It was a risky venture. Taxes, tributes, bribes and deceptions were rife. Storms, pirates, disease and rival traders were a constant threat during the two-year round trip voyage to and from Europe. Most went well but sometimes disaster struck – and wrecks are still being found with marvelous porcelains still intact, such as the Longquan found in 1996 loaded with superb celadons, although since much of its other cargo has been lost or destroyed by fishing trawlers. Despite the risks, traders made huge profits for their companies, themselves and their countries. England’s East India Company, popularly known as John Company, was the most powerful commercial enterprise of its day.

Plate decorated with the Arms of the East India Company

Based in Leadenhall Street, London, the English East India Company presided over the creation of British India, founded Hong Kong and Singapore, employed Captain Kidd to combat piracy, established tea in India and held Napoleon captive on St Helena. Its products were the subject of the Boston Tea Party and the red and white horizontally striped flag, more than likely inspired the design for the American Flag, Initially however it made little impression, because it could not establish a lasting outpost in the East Indies.

In the western world from classical Greece and Rome onward the fashioning of a human identity was an ever evolving process. During the late and high Middle Ages in England and Europe elite members of society, whose circle was expanding rapidly, fashioned themselves according to what they believed were ideal patterns for living. These consisted, not only of good manners, but also were an expression of what was considered good, and in the eighteenth century this was visually expressed by an appropriate display of ‘correct’ aesthetic taste.

These precepts satisfied their own internal adornment, while manifesting themselves externally in bodily ornaments that reflected the fact their possessors belonged to a unique rank in society. It was one that everyone else was clamoring to emulate, or join. One of these outward symbols was a coat of arms; quite literally a linen or silk surcoat worn to protect armour from the sun’s heat, dirt etc…on to which each knight or noble had his Heraldic arms embroidered.

Plate decorated with Heraldic Arms A pattern for this plate survives, the only complete design for an armorial service to be recorded. It was made for Leake Okeover, whose arms are impaled with those of his wife, Mary Nichol; their conjoined monogram, LMO, appears in cartouches on the rim. The service was shipped from Canton to England in two instalments in 1740 and in 1743

Traditionally in heraldry the Coat of Arms consists of a Shield at its centre, crowned often by a Helmet which is in turn surmounted by a Crest, a decorative ornament meant to afford protection against a fatal blow. Added to this group was the Mantling; i.e. ornamental drapery flanking or accentuating the central shield which again in turn is flanked on each side by a pair of standing figures known as Supporters.

The demand for Chinese decorated armorial porcelain increased from the mid seventeenth century onward in Europe and during the eighteenth century thousands of services were ordered.

Drawings of individual coat-of-arms were dispatched to China to be copied as faithfully as possible. Some were lavishly painted in polychrome enamels and gilding, covering much of the surface, while others, particularly those toward the end of the century, might simply incorporate a small crest or monogram.

Crests, like arms, were sometimes allusive. Grey of Wilton used a badger; Lord Wells had a bucket and chain. In the early days of the crest was confined to persons of rank. In later times it was included in every grant of arms.

A high degree of understanding between Private trader and the Chinese Merchant who placed the order was important if a good result was to be achieved for the client at home in Europe.

Sometimes this went massively wrong and while today examples of what happened affords us much amusement, to those literally waiting for years to receive services for the East only to have them arrive wrongly painted must have been frustrating beyond belief.

The technique of painting porcelains over the glaze in the famille rose palette of opaque and semi-opaque enamels was perfected at the Jingdezhen kilns of Jiangxi Province in the eighteenth century, during the reign of the Qing-dynasty Yongzheng emperor (1723-35).

How it happened is that the families in Europe or England would record their instructions re colouring or about the design in English and these along with the design were faithfully copied by Chinese workers who had no English. Why did the private trade in armorial wares at this time in history prove so popular?

The Emperor Ch’ien Lung a noted patron of the arts was very interested in western culture, and there is no doubt he more than likely encouraged the making of many pieces based on the design of French articles sent as presents to Peking from the King of France, or ordered from Paris by the Jesuits at the command of the Emperor.

The terms famille rose and famille verte were first coined by Albert, I JACQUEMART, 1808-1875, and Edmond LE BLANT, 1813-1897 in their work Histoire artistique, industrielle et commerciale de la porcelaine. Published at Paris by Techener, 1862. Famille, meaning family, was meant to describe an enamel palette with one predominant base colour developed for use on porcelain in the second half of the seventeenth century. These included rose, verte [green], jaune [yellow], or noir [black] porcelains.

Today they are highly sought after by collectors

I went to dine
With a friend of mine
Who dined off porcelain plates
Of a kind so rare
That it stirred your hair
To think of their possible fates

For some were Ming
and others were Ch’ing
(Whatever those names may be)
And the food was divine
And the wine, the wine
Intoxicated me

There were ices – those
were of famille rose,
and coffee of famille noire
and a choice dessertof famille verte
Preceded a choice cigar.

But alas for the end
Of dinner and friend
For he happened his eyes to raise
As I started to rub

The burning stub
On a bit of his finest glaze.

He was perfectly nice,
But as cold as ice,
As he rang for my coat and hat,
For Ming is a thing,
And so is Ch’ing,
That mustn’t be used for that **

View of the Western Hongs of Canton. Oils on fine linen

Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Dutch East Indian ships plied their trade at Boston, New York and up the Hudson River to Albany, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Williamsburg and Charleston in the Americas. Initial contact was at New Amsterdam and the first Williamsburg settlement as early as 1620.

A considerable volume of porcelain was bought at auction in Europe by China wholesalers and shipped to flourishing cities on the East Coast, where they adorned many a fine table and the distribution point for ‘China’ became one of the causes of complaint leading to the War of Independence in 1775. Of all the wares traded those that catered to the new craze for tea were the most popular.

China Trade Dinner Service for the American Market

By the eighteenth century two varieties of tea dominated the trade. Bohea, a black tea originally the choicest grade until the turn of the eighteenth century when Hyson, which translates to “Flourishing Spring“, then became the luxury tea. (Green tea is made from the steamed and dried leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant, a shrub native to the mountainous regions of Asia. Black tea is also made from this plant, but unlike green tea, is made from leaves that have been dried and fermented).

Tea mania swept England, as it had earlier in France and Holland. Tea imports rose in weight from 40,000 pounds in 1699 to an annual average of 240,000 pounds by 1708. Hyson was so highly favoured during the eighteenth century the British Tea Tax was levied at a higher rate for it than any other variety. All was mayhem when on April 1, 1774, a posse of Bostonians, greatly deplored at the time even by George Washington, disguised themselves, not too convincingly, as Mohawk Indians and merrily dumped cargoes of Hyson tea into Boston Harbour and

The waters in the rebel bay
Have kept their tea leaf savour
Our old North Enders in their Spray
Still taste a Hyson flavour…

Boston Tea Party from an engraving by Currier

The mood that moonlit night was jubilant. One merry maker exclaimed, “Boston Harbor a teapot tonight! Hurrah!” But the morning after was sobering. The party was over and to give up their beloved, ancient tea, made of cured dried Camellia sinensis leaves, posed a practical problem: what to drink instead?

After all, wrote Samuel Johnson, the average colonist, including himself, was “a hardened and shameless tea-drinker’ and forsaking the ritual and comfort of a nice cup of tea was sure to be difficult

‘Thank God for Tea! What would the world do without tea. How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea’ and, to own a fine ‘China’ cup to drink it from.

Carolyn McDowall The Culture Concept Circle, 2010 and 2011

* British Poet 1756  James Cawthorn – On Taste
** Anonymous poem found ‘typed’ on a piece of paper and  inserted into an nineteenth century publication on Ceramics by Carolyn McDowall in 1997

Related posts:

1. Collecting Chinese Snuff Containers
2. Chinese Kingfisher Ornaments – Beauty and Decoration
3. A Chinese Garden – The Rhythm of Nature Refreshing the Heart

Related posts:

1. Classic: Cargoes from Cathay
2. Chinese Ceramics – ‘Knowledge Comes from Seeing Much’
3. Classic: ‘true’ Porcelain

Ladies disporting themselves in and around Chinese Pavilions - Detail from a Lacquer Screen, courtesy Martyn Cook Antiques

The International trade routes with Asia stretch back into antiquity when there is archaeological evidence of cross cultural influences from Cathay (China) with its Asian neighbours, as well as those separated by great distances, such as the Roman, Persian and Greek empires. From the first century trade moved regularly overland between the Chinese capital and the Mediterranean a distance of 7000 kilometres. Roman ships laden with trade goods, gold bullion and coins set out from Red Sea ports each year. The trade with Asia was continued well into the 2nd century, a fact documented in Chinese Han dynasty records. There is also evidence of trade activities through sea voyages from China to many Eastern ports on the Atlantic Ocean rim. Goods came along the Seidenstrassen, or Silk Road (the name coined by Baron Ferdinand Von Richthofen in the nineteenth century) for ancient routes that linked Asia and the west.

During the Middle Ages in western Europe these contacts were, by and large, reduced to a mere trickle, as cities and towns defended themselves against continual threats of invasion by emigrating and marauding peoples. The first stirring of what we now describe as the nineteenth century China Trade began when Europe was still emerging from the medieval period.  Marco Polo’s controversial ‘Description of the World’, written in 1298 described a vast exotic land filled with amenable, happy people who seemingly whiled away the hours pleasantly disporting in pavilions set in ethereal landscapes.

The world that Venetian adventurer Marco Polo (1254-1324) first described to western Christendom was almost wholly unknown and he said himself that ‘no other man, Christian or Saracen, Mongol or Pagan, has explored so much of the world as Messer Marco, son of Messer Niccolo Polo, great and noble citizen of the city of Venice. ‘Let us travel into Cathay, so.. you may learn something of it grandeurs’ he wrote , inspiring the notion China was a land unlike any other.

After seventeen years of living at the court of the Great Khan Kubilai where they enjoyed many privileges, Marco, his father and Uncle Matteo finally returned to Venice ‘I believe it was God’s will we should come back so that men might know the things that are in the world’. Polo’s much disputed account of the wealth of Cathay (China), the might of the Mongol empire and exotic customs of India and Africa ensured his book was a bestseller. Its impact on contemporary Europe was tremendous, although contemporarily it became known as Il Milione the Million Lies. Marco Polo earned the nickname Marco Milione as few believed the stories were true. However on his deathbed he was reputed to have confused the issue by saying ‘I did not tell yet half of what I saw’.

The popularity of Marco Polo’s Travels were, by the mid fourteenth century surpassed by self-styled noble author ‘Sir’ John Mandeville’s Travels. Mandeville enhanced the view of a people who were different, but in no way inferior. Although their source is much disputed they did provide further insight into a culture that by now many found fascinating, profound and perhaps just a little peculiar. Initially Europeans could not differentiate between Chinese, Indian, Japanese South East Asian, or Middle Eastern peoples. That meant the European eastern vision was extremely vast and,  did not really reflect the geographic or cultural reality.

Ceramic traditions since ancient times have undergone many cross fertilizations by their exposure to various cultures. In 1368 the famed poets and painters of the Chinese T’ang and Sung dynasties had already passed into the hallowed halls of antiquity. And, it was also considered by the Chinese themselves that the supreme periods of their major arts had passed.

By the fifteenth century select pieces of porcelain made for the Imperial Court and the more exacting home markets of China were arriving in Europe to be displayed in homes of its successful merchants and noble families. These wares were both respected and revered for their boldness of colouring and modernity of design. They were magically translucent, resonant when struck,  impervious to liquids and considered to be refined, aesthetically pleasing with great beauty of form. To put it into a European context Emperor Wan Li, the last ruler of the Ming Dynasty was sitting on the Throne of Heaven between 1573 and 1620 when Elizabeth 1st in England was contending with Mary Queen of Scots and other issues.

The earliest accurate records we have of pieces of Chinese porcelain in the west are those listed in Queen Elizabeth 1′s will. From this we can deduce that they were highly prized. Burghley House was the home of Elizabeth 1′s advisers the Cecil’s who became one of the most powerful families during the reign of the Tudor’s in England.  Like others they enshrined each precious object with the addition of gilded mounts a traditional practice of western Christianity for centuries. The gilded mounts attached to Chinese porcelains in great English country house collections today reveal the mounts offered a measure of protection against their fragility and highlighted the esteem in which they were held.

The trade to Europe prior to 1600 was sporadic and the Portuguese established themselves at a succession of key points including Goa on the Indian Coast before 1511 and Malacca, which they seized in that year. It was the main junction for the Indies spice trade and the limit reached by the Chinese junks, which came south to exchange cargoes of porcelain and silk. In 1557 they were allowed to settle in Macao and from then onward pieces came to the west with seamen.

Port of Macao in the nineteenth century

Kraak is a Dutch word thought to be a corruption of the name for Portuguese Carracks, whose goods were dubbed kraak ware when they arrived. One of the most notable “Catarina’ was taken by the Dutch off the coast of Malaya. There was much rejoicing in Amsterdam when her cargo of about 100,000 pieces was sold on the docks as the Dutch were seeking to wrestle the trade opportunities away from the Portuguese.

A flexible and entrepreneurial business class developed in China during its Ming Period (1368-1644) and there is a very real idea the western world economic system grew out of its  fascination with the east as she sought to fulfill her craving for luxury goods such as silks, spices, teas, porcelain, furniture, painting and silver.

Seventeenth century Dutch artists incorporated Chinese porcelains in their genre of ‘still life’ painting confronting us with a moral choice. They reflected the Calvinistic approach at the time for that of translating choices into terms of good and evil. Painters used the dishes to reflect the fragility and transitory nature of humankind, as well as the vanity of the collector who have been seen as vainglorious. Fruit in paintings symbolised fertility, luxury and enjoyment of sensory pleasures and Artists also depicted decorative objects to reflect their aesthetic values.

Detail Still Life by Jan Davidsz de Heem

They only existed to the extent that they could be experienced by their translucency to light, which dispelled darkness; this idea had theological links to a belief in Jesus the Christ as the light, and therefore hope of the world. This spiritual perspective was a great force in seventeenth century Holland underpinning the art of many painters of the period.

The years surrounding the fall of the Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644)  and founding of the Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911) were uncertain and foreign trade suffered. The Chinese Emperor Kangxi (1662-1722) was himself an accomplished poet and calligrapher, as well as a vigorous reformer, patron of classical studies and the decorative arts. He ordered the reconstruction of ceramic kilns at Jingdezhen that had been partly destroyed during a transitional period between dynasties.

During the reign of Kangxi painting in cobalt blue reached new heights of artistic and technical achievement and the colour and techniques attached to rendering painted decoration under the glaze were refined. The volume of porcelain imported to Europe increased and by the second half of the seventeenth century trade with Cathay had become far more important to Europeans than to China’s rulers, who prided themselves on their nation’s self-sufficiency.

Blanc de Chine (white porcelain) wares made near Dehua in Fujian province were first exported to England in huge quantities. However by 1715 their popularity was waning because of the invention of European porcelain by Johann Friedrich Boettger at Meissen in 1710. In less than five years Boettger’s moulded white wares, inspired by oriental blanc-de-chine, became available. The beautiful prunus blossom and grape vines so admired on Chinese wares were grafted onto shapes preferred in Europe, giving the pieces a distinct flavour of the orient.

Meissen Blanc de Chine

Tea had arrived in Europe in the first ten years of the seventeenth century but only a tiny stratum of society enjoyed it at first, because its cost was extremely prohibitive. The acquisition of ‘china’ to drink tea from became a craze among the very wealthy fashionable. This included beautiful blue and white wares, colourfully enameled wares and simple blanc de chine tea wares all of which were imported at great cost.

The English aristocracy began a daily ritual for the taking of tea. Two varieties dominated the early trade Bohea, which was a black tea and the other a green tea made from the steamed and dried leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant a shrub  native to the mountainous regions of Asia.  While Black tea is also made from this plant unlike green tea, which is made from dried and fermented  leaves. Following the beheading of his father Charles 1 England’s heir apparent and prince in waiting was in exile at the French and Dutch courts. His restoration to the throne of England in 1660 was a great impetus for change. A new class of people emerged, one whose wealth was based on business and trade rather than inherited land as it had been since William the Conqueror in 1066.

1660 was also the year English diarist Samuel Pepys recorded the pleasures associated with the taking of  ‘this China drinke’. Catharine of Braganza the new King Charles II’s prospective bride arrived at Portsmouth on 13th May 1662 on route to her new home. She asked first for a ‘cup of tea’, thus ensuring its popularity.

There is a ‘ large four square teapot’ in the so-called ‘Devonshire Schedule’ at Chatsworth, one of England’s most famous country houses. It appears among a list of items bequeathed by Elizabeth, the Countess of Devonshire to her daughter Anne, who became the 5th Earl of Burghley’s wife. Presumably the teapot went with her to Burghley House and its silver gilt mounts date from c1650.

Plying the China trade by sea was an exceedingly risky venture for all concerned. Taxes, tributes, bribes and deceptions were rife. Storms, pirates, disease and rival traders were also a constant threat during the often two-year round trip voyage to and from Europe. Ship’s officers and crews sailing out of England actively engaged in this exclusive and lucrative private trade, which was either commissioned, or bought for speculative purchase.

Demand eventually outstripped all other trade as porcelain became the largest, most desirable precious cargo from Cathay. Packed into tubs and wooden boxes it was cushioned with rice or other marketable goods such as pepper, sago and tea, all of which were used in the bottom of ships for ballast. It would take until the turn of the eighteenth century for Chinese officials to realize the monetary potential of Europe’s interest in their wares and art forms and begin to take advantage of it.

Carolyn McDowall, Revised March 2011 © The Culture Concept Circle.

Related posts:

1. At the Beginnings of Art – Precious Cargoes from Cathay
2. CIVILISED – At the Beginnings of Art – Day 10 Precious Cargoes from Cathay
3. The First Emperor of China – Seeking the Mandate of Heaven