How the Grenadier Regiment was exchanged for a vase and other facts about the legendary Ming Dynasty porcelain

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Cobalt painting on white porcelain, which conquered the world, Arabic calligraphy next to Chinese plum branches, poetic lines and wise dragons among flowers, gods keeping the secret of immortality …, have not yet been disclosed.

Procession from Iraq to Russia

There is a version that blue painting on a white background is not an invention of Chinese, but of Iraqi masters. On the other hand, the development of blue and white Iraqi ceramics coincided with the growth of imports of ceramic products from China - therefore, as in the case of gunpowder and paper, China has every right to claim the primacy here. At least as early as the seventh century AD, Jingdezhen, where the largest kaolin deposit was located, was producing ceramics. Interestingly, Arabic calligraphy and the characteristic oriental islimi ornament are found on vases from the period of the Zhengde emperor.

Although the Chinese blue and white ceramics reached their true heyday in the XIV century, many of their specimens came to Europe before - the influence of Asian cobalt painting on snow-white porcelain is found in medieval Spanish and Italian majolica. All in the same XIV century, Portuguese merchants brought blue and white Chinese porcelain to Europe. The first European porcelain largely imitated the vases of the Ming dynasty. Blue and white Delft porcelain, blue and white porcelain of Copenhagen … And blue and white Gzhel flowers blooming on the surface of cups and saucers. In the 19th century, in the wake of Russian fashion for foreign porcelain, Gzhel masters tried to imitate Chinese, Meissen, Delft and Copenhagen, using white and blue along with color painting. But the same recognizable blue and white style of Gzhel painting is almost a modern invention. It was designed by the artist N. I. Bessarabova at the end of the 40s in collaboration with art critic A. B. Saltykov.

"White-blue gold" that drives you crazy

Ming dynasty vases were of great value to Europeans - thin, graceful, almost transparent … The secret of Chinese porcelain was not subject to disclosure on pain of death, and even today the exact recipe and manufacturing technology are unknown. The production of porcelain was under the personal control of the emperor of the Celestial Empire, the kilns were called "imperial". Catholic missionaries, merchants, alchemists and even kings were eager to learn the "Chinese secret".

Some of the European rulers were literally obsessed with porcelain. For example, Augustus of Saxony, elector of Saxony and king of Poland, exchanged a grenadier regiment for several vases of Minsk porcelain … In general, August's passion for collecting threatened to breach the state treasury of Saxony, which was the reason for his interest in alchemy. Shouldn't mercury be smelted into gold? Mercury, however, did not work, but with clay … It was at the Saxon court that John Böttger, an alchemist and charlatan saved by the king from the reprisals of an angry crowd, invented European porcelain, and soon, by order of Augustus, the first porcelain manufactories were opened in Meissen and Dresden. who for several years were engaged almost exclusively in copying Chinese vases. Today, the value of the Ming Dynasty vases is only growing. In 2006, the most valuable vase, once owned by Emperor Hong-woo, was acquired by a casino owner from Las Vegas … for 600 million dollars. The vase was donated to a museum in Macau.

Vases - like greeting cards

Traditional ornaments of vases of the Ming dynasty are considered to be picturesque images of pine, bamboo and plum; dragons are often found among the scattering of flowers. Over time, the paintings became more voluminous and more diverse - many species of plants and animals, mythological and historical characters, gods and magical creatures, calligraphy appear in them … However, these blue patterns were created not only for beauty - they served as "good wishes", jixiang - generalized good messages designed to attract happiness, health and wealth to the owner's house.

Many Jixiang motives migrated to vase painting from painting, illustration, embroidery, textile decoration. The range of visual images of jixiang is very wide and varies from laconic floral ornaments to complex plot scenes, from individual hieroglyphs to verse lines or illustrations of famous sayings.

The most important for Chinese culture is the wish for longevity - it is symbolized by the god of long life, Shousin, or his attributes - peach and pumpkin, as well as deer, cranes, turtles, bamboo shoots and pine branches. The most remarkable symbol of longevity is the moon hare and the frog, which pound the medicine of immortality in a mortar. To wish for happiness, they sometimes used images consonant with the hieroglyph "fu" - for example, a bat. The image of a toad became a wish for wealth, and a magpie was a forerunner of an imminent celebration, for example, a wedding.

They're not all blue and white

Over time, in the paintings of vases of the Ming dynasty, the classic duet of white and blue, which caused a wave of imitation around the world, was replaced by other shades. The bluish-white background was colored with scarlet, green, yellow … At first, the cobalt company was a red paint, but the sources of the pigment quickly disappeared.

Later, Chinese craftsmen began to use red paints obtained from iron oxide, and a wide variety of enamels and glazes, often complementing them with deliberately created decorative cracks that give the impression of antiquity of the product. Turquoise and yellow enamels were especially popular. Throughout the reign of the Ming dynasty, masters experimented with dyes and looked for new solutions, new compositions, new technologies. And although the recipe for Chinese porcelain remained a mystery, the invention of the newest colored glazes of previously unattainable brightness and strength was a breakthrough for the production of porcelain.