Painted by fire: Jean Theodore Royer's Chinese enameled plaques - Collection from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam - Critical Essay

Magazine Antiques, Feb, 2004 by Jan Van Campen

The rarity of plaques such as Royer's in Europe today strengthens the notion that they were not made exclusively, or even primarily, for export. In China such plaques would not have been considered works of high art, to be treasured for centuries, but rather as decorative pieces that were unlikely to be preserved. (21) In purchasing objects for Royer's collection, his contacts bought, besides "obvious" objects that "every" Westerner brought back from China, the everyday implements, souvenirs, and gifts that were valued specifically by Chinese people and rarely found in Western collections. Assuming that Carolus Wang played an important role in acquiring such pieces, it can be argued that he would have seen the plaques as perfect objects for Royer's collection: new, unusual, and with decoration that would have appealed to and been meaningful to him as a Chinese person. (22)

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I am grateful to Christiaan J. A. Jorg and Ellen Uitzinger for their criticism and suggestions in the preparation of this article; to Koos Kuiper for his transcriptions and translations from the Chinese; and to Harriet Impey for translating this article into English.

(1) Examples, mostly with Western images, have appeared occasionally on the art market. The following have offered them in recent years: Oriental Art Gallery, London (1994); Robert Hall, London (1997); H. Blairman and Sons, London (1997); Sotheby's New York (January 2002); A. and J. Speelman, Oriental Art, London (2002).

(2) Jan van Campen, De Haagse jurist Jean Theodore Royer (1737-1807) en zijn verzameling Chinese voorwerpen (Verloren, Hilversum, Netherlands 2000). "Painted by fire," the title of this article, is based on entry 339 in the 1814 inventory of Royer's collection (inv. no. 865, Rijksmuseum archive, Rijksarchief [State archives], Noord-Holland, Haarlem). See also J. van Campen, "A Chinese collection in the Netherlands," The Magazine ANTIQUES, vol. 158, no. 3 (September 2000), pp. 360-371.

(3) Surviving letters written to Royer and Royer's personal notes are, unfortunately, not as plentiful and detailed as one would wish, but his modus operandi emerges clearly from them. Letters from Carolus Wang and Jean Paul Certon (1741-1793) to Royer are inv. nos. 949-950, Rijksmuseum archive, Rijksarchief, Noord-Holland. The plaques themselves are never mentioned.

(4) David Howard and John Ayers, China for the West: Chinese Porcelain and Other Decorative Arts for Export Illustrated from the Mottahedeh Collection (Sotheby Parke Bernet, London and New York, 1978), vol. 1, No. 280.

(5) It would even be possible to transfer such an image directly onto the porcelain surface, but, given the difference in sizes and details between the print and the plaque, in this case at least this did not happen.

(6) See Francois and Nicole Hervouet and Yves Bruneau, La porcelaine des Compagnies des Indes a decor occidental (Flammarion, Paris, 1986), pp. 74-77.

(7) The Chinese hunting-scene panel is in the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts (acc. AE85925). The National Gallery in Prague has a Chinese plaque with an image in encre de Chine of a swan being seized by a dog. I am grateful to Filip Suchomel at the National Gallery, Prague, for drawing it to my attention. For more on the Staffordshire plaques, see Howard and Ayers, China for the West, vol. 1, No. 282a.