Chinese armorial porcelain

Apollo, Nov, 2003 by Rose Kerr

Volume II David Sanctuary Howard Heirloom & Howard, 2003, ISBN 0 9544 389 0 6 (cloth), 0 9544 389 1 4 (leather), 480 [pounds sterling] (cloth)

The 'Volume II' in the title of this excellent reference volume is explained by the fact that this is a second, much updated, version of a work originally published in 1974. The research that accompanied both the original book and this revised and expanded text marks the lifetime accomplishment of a dedicated scholar. The marrying of a study of armorial devices copied onto Chinese porcelain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with research into various East India Company records (in particular, those now housed in the India Office Library in the new British Library building), has been a mammoth task.

One of the skills required for the project was an ability to understand, decipher and communicate the Laws of Blazon, a complex set of rules to describe coats of arms. Those heraldic laws, first developed in Britain in the twelfth century, aimed to ensure recognition of status and property. It acted rather like a superior form of name-tag, and enabled rights of possession to be marked centuries later, as the porcelains in this book are. A useful chapter on the Laws of Blazon illustrates the varying elements that combine to provide a unique coat of arms, and acts as an introduction to the whole system.

The opportunities for Britons to travel, both in pursuit of trade and pleasurable education, increased during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. That travel took place both nationally and internationally, and was accompanied by aspirations that led to the overt display of riches and social standing in the form of armorials. Devices were emblazoned on coaches, and also in the home. Dinner tables were embellished with armorial silver and porcelain, gaming tables used mother-of-pearl gaming counters bearing coats of arms, while libraries were filled with rare volumes containing armorial bookplates. The relationship between different forms of armorial possession is explored by the author, as is their role (particularly in the form of bookplates) in providing patterns for armorial decorators in China.

Archival research was a vital tool in identification, but on its own would have been ineffectual if not combined with detailed, first-hand knowledge of artefacts. David Howard has been an expert in Chinese export porcelain for over thirty years, having made it his business, in a small shop in Hay Hill in London, to specialise in heraldic objects and wherever possible to reunite them with the families for whom they had originally been created.

The identification of porcelain, not only as to heraldic designs but also as to origins and authenticity, underpins two of the central chapters of the book. The first deals with original pattern drawings supplied to China, later replacement items made to complete damaged services both in China and the west, European overpainted additions, and fakes. The latter topic is not often dealt with effectively in print, and it is useful to have a variety of nineteenth- and twentieth-century copies explained in both visual and documentary terms. Nothing can equal hands-on knowledge, however, especially where careful forgeries are concerned, for example those manufactured from 1850 onwards by the Samson workshop near Paris. The second chapter under discussion concerns the commercial market in Chinese armorial porcelain during the twentieth century, and in the future. The author correctly identifies the importance of north American collectors and museums in the process, and also the increasing influence of the internet, whereby objects can be viewed and purchased at long range. Monetary value and new technology are also subjects seldom touched on in books on art history, and we should welcome their inclusion here.

Before getting on to the kernel of this volume, namely its extensive photographic catalogue, we should also look at supplementary documentation provided. For many reference books it may be sufficient to include a competent index, which as David Howard notes is an essential tool, and one whose compilation has been augmented over the last thirty years by advances in computer software. In the case of this work, an additional fourteen appendices are presented, together with a listing of services not illustrated or identified. Many of the appendices, for example those listing Chairmen and Directors of the Honourable East India Company, Governors of important colonial entrepots, and captains and supercargoes of ships, incorporate extensive research in the archives. Others, such as the list of mottoes on porcelain, provide entertaining reading. While English patrons preferred an edifying Latin tag, the Scots often employed resourceful and combative phrases in North British dialect, my own favourite being that of the Robertsons: 'Dinna waken sleeping dogs'.

Finally, then, we move to the listing of services with photographs, which occupies some 640 pages of the 900 page text. The original 1974 catalogue listed nearly 3,000 services made for families with British connections, of which almost 2,000 were illustrated. This new 2003 edition illustrates some 3,380 services, and David Howard believes that perhaps as many as 2,000 more still await discovery. The question of how to order this complex material was solved in 1974 by dividing them according to the style of the designs on their rims, a system substantially unaltered in the current edition. Although the system is not perfect, containing minor contradictions and overlaps, it is vastly more efficient than searching for armorials without possessing a comprehensive knowledge of heraldry. Twenty-five rim styles are listed, together with a last category for lacquer and paintings. The rim styles comprise such categories as 'bamboo' and 'spearhead', and once an initial understanding has been gained, are reasonably easy to follow. The additional benefit of the method is that it supplements dating of whole categories of both domestic and export Chinese porcelain, that bear motifs corresponding to non-armorial designs. For example, one vexing problem is to distinguish between ordinary-quality wares made in the latter years of the Yongzheng reign (1723-35), and in the early years of the succeeding Qianlong period (1736-95). The sections under 'diaper' and 'scroll bands' borders contain several examples that offer useful indicators for the decade 1730-40.