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

Magazine Antiques, March, 2004 by Jan van Campen

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Royer's contacts in China, especially Carolus Wang, undoubtedly appreciated those aspects of the enameled plaques that would have made them especially attractive to a Chinese person. Their rarity in Western collections reflects Europeans' preferences for other objects. All in all, they bear fascinating witness to the relations between East and West in the second half of the eighteenth century. Chinese enamel painters assimilated Western images and conceptions in order to satisfy the desire for exotica among Chinese clients. A Chinese agent who had spent eight years in Europe bought exactly these pieces for the collection of the learned Dutchman Royer, who with the help of his objects wanted to build a better picture of the "real" China.

I am grateful to Harriet Impey for translating this article into English.

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(1) Jan van Campen, "Painted by fire: Jean Theodore Royer's Chinese enameled plaques. Part I: The porcelain plaques," The Magazine ANTIOUES, vol. 165, no. 2 (February 2004), pp. 74-81.

(2) During a recent restoration of one of the lacquer frames, it became evident that the back of the copperplate was also covered with white enamel (see Pl. X). This is called counter-enameling and is done to prevent the thick layer of enamel on one side of the plate from causing the copper to bow. I am grateful to Margot van Schinkel, restorer of glass and ceramics at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, for this information.

(3) Michael Gillingham, Chinese Painted Enamels: An Exhibition Held in the [Ashmolean Museum] Department of Eastern Art (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and John Sparks, London, 1978), p. 4.

(4) Theodoor Hermann Lunsingh Scheudeer, 150 Jaar Koninklijk Kabinet van Schilderijen, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Koninklijk Penningkabinet; herdenkingstentoonstelling in het Mauritshuis, 1966 (The Hague, 1966), No. 371. The plaques are also published in the important Catalogue of the International Exhibition of Chinese Art 1935-6 (Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1935), No. 2180.

(5) Gillingham, Chinese Painted Enamels, pp. 6-7.

(6) For examples of early pieces that could not have been made without European instruction, see Rosemary E. Scott, For the Imperial Court: Qing Porcelain from the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art (American Federation of the Arts, New York, and Sun Tree Publishing, London, 1997), pp. 88-89, No. 27; Michel Beurdeley and Guy Raindre, Qing porcelain: Famille verte, famille rose, trans. Charlotte Chesney (Thames and Hudson, London, 1987), p. 140; and especially Wen C. Fong and James C. Y. Watt, Possessing the Past: Treasures from the National Palace Museum. Taipei (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1996), pp. 509-519.

(7) Nigel Wood, Chinese Glazes: Their Origins, Chemistry and Recreation (A. and C. Black, London, 1998), pp. 240-243. According to Wood, this new style was known in China as falancai, the term that was traditionally also used for cloisonne enamel. Wood sees this as an indication of the Chinese origins of the technique.