Painted by fire: Jean Theodore Royer's Chinese enameled plaques; Part II: the copper plaques

Magazine Antiques, March, 2004 by Jan van Campen

The famous collection of fine and applied Chinese arts assembled in the eighteenth century by Jean Theodore Royer (1737-1807) in The Hague included a rare group of eighteen painted plaques. In Part I of this article I discussed the ten porcelain examples. (1) Here I will address the eight painted on copper.

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Painting in enamels on copper is the same process as on porcelain, except that the entire copper sheet must first be covered with enamel, usually white, and fired at a low temperature. (2) Next, the painted enamel decoration is applied in all colors except gold and black (which do not need to be fired) and then the plate is fired a second time. Finally, the gold and black are added. (3)

The two spectacular enameled copper plaques in Plates II and III are meticulously copied from prints by Pierre Filloeul (Figs. 1,2) after paintings entitled Le concert amoureux and Le baiser donne by Jean Baptiste Joseph Pater. (4) Le baiser donne is reproduced as a mirror image. The compositions are obviously entirely Western, and the Chinese painter has applied great effort to depicting the three-dimensionality of the figures. The representation of volume is a European painterly quality that is alien to Chinese painting, but it is characteristic of all the enameled copper plaques in Royer's collection. The figures are consistently executed in relief, so that they come forward from the background, and shadows are created with tiny brushstrokes.

The introduction of painting with opaque enamels on copper and porcelain was an important technical innovation that is generally associated with the knowledge the Jesuits brought to Peking (now called Beijing) from Europe about 1715 or 1720. (5) Qianlong (r. 1736-1795), the Chinese emperor, commissioned his imperial workshops to make objects similar to the pieces that Jesuit missionaries showed him. In fact, a considerable number of the objects made in the imperial workshops appear to have been made under the instruction of European artists, for they are decorated with completely Western images, something the Chinese artists would not have been in a position to do independently at the time. (6)

At the same time, and for the first time, Chinese porcelain painters were cooperating with painters in enamels on copper and with Chinese craftsmen who made cloisonne objects, a medium with a long tradition in China. Thus, this cooperation may have also been partly responsible for the transfer of the technical knowledge of how to paint in opaque enamels on porcelain and copper. (7)

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Soon after its introduction in Peking, the technique of painting in enamels on copper was adopted on a large scale in Canton (now called Guangzhou). Pieces that exhibit small, careful brushstrokes are in general considered typical of Peking, while those that display a palette and brush technique strongly akin to famille rose porcelain of the period are considered to be Cantonese. Thus, based on their painting technique and subject choice, Royer's plaques after Pater's paintings fit into the category of Peking enamels of the second quarter of the eighteenth century. However, they were actually made in Canton approximately fifty years later. In the course of the century the workshops in Canton had assimilated the refined Peking style without much difficulty.

An important source of information about this assimilation is provided by tribute gifts given to the court in Peking. Like foreigners, China's provincial governments, including those in Canton and the province of Guangdong in which Canton is located, had to bring tributes to the imperial court. (8) Records and actual objects today in the Palace Museum in Beijing provide precise information about the place and time of their manufacture. Among these are copper objects decorated with entirely Western images painted in enamels in a precise Peking style, but manufactured in Canton. (9) Some of the images produced in Canton followed Western sources precisely, such as Fillocul's prints, while others were freer compositions that used components of Western images or European stylistic conventions to create a totally new style. (10)

The six other copper plaques from Royer's collection illustrate how inventively the Chinese workshops combined Chinese subject matter with elements from the European painterly tradition to create this new style. The plaques in Plates V and VI (see also the cover and Pl. I) each depict a Chinese man, woman, child, and servant bearing tea in a Chinese house. On the one in Plate V the man is an official wearing winter dress; he is pointing to a woman, who from her large shoes and broad hair adornment, is easily recognizable as a Manchu. (11) The Manchus, who originated in Manchuria, had seized power in China in 1644 and established the Qing dynasty, which ruled until 1911. The two dogs in the foreground are a symbol of marriage. On the other plaque (Pls. I. VI) the man wears informal summer dress and is pointing to a woman whose costume is that of the Han Chinese, the original inhabitants of China. The calligraphic text behind her refers to feelings of both friendship and inconstancy. (12) Thus, what we are dealing with in these plaques are opposites: winter and summer, Manchu and Han Chinese.