Lisa Ellis
An Investigation into "Ghosts" and Gilding on a Kangxi Porcelain Pot in J. Paul Getty Museum
In
2001 the J. Paul Getty Museum acquired a Chinese gilded porcelain teapot
made between 1662 and 1690, in the Kangxi period (1662–1722). Finely
worked European silver mounts encase this porcelain vessel, which is marked
on its base with an artemisia leaf (fig. 1). The teapot exhibits two small
but significant areas of damage, partially hidden by trellis work in the
silver mounts. These suggest that the pot’s handle originally spanned
the top of the vessel. Most likely deliberate, the removal of the handle
has damaged the glaze: the surface has been ground away, revealing a white
body. The silver replacement handle is now located at the side, opposite
the spout.1
The teapot’s rich blue speckled glaze has many names that describe
either the way it was applied, its color, or both: “blown blue,”
blue souZé, fouette, the “Mazarin technique,” and ch’ui
ch’ing. This method of glaze application, by no means restricted to
the color blue, was described by T’ang Ying, a director of the imperial
porcelain manufacture at Jingdezhen in the mid-eighteenth century—or
about fifty years after the creation of the Getty teapot:
| |
A bamboo tube one inch in diameter and some seven inches long has one of
its ends bound round with a fine gauze, which is dipped repeatedly into the
glaze and blown through from the other end. The number of times that this
process has to be repeated depends partly on the size of the piece, partly
on the nature of the glaze, varying from three or four times up to seventeen
or eighteen.2 |
In the case of the Getty teapot, the “blown blue” glaze was further
decorated with gilding. Not surprisingly, it is in very poor condition,
and worn away where it was not protected by the silver mounts (fig. 2). While
this is typical of many surviving Kangxi gilded vessels, a well-preserved,
gilded porcelain brush holder of the same date, from the collection of Augustus
the Strong, is a fortunate anomaly.3
Although only traces of the gilding survive, the teapot’s original
appearance can be reconstructed. Areas that were once gilded can be distinguished,
with some diYculty, from areas that were never gilded. The former appear
matte, which evidently is linked to the method of gilding as described below.
Unfortunately, photography of these areas is made nearly impossible by the
vessel’s shape and highly reflective glaze. A quarter of the gilded
design was re-created by manipulating a digital image (fig. 3).
Analysis of the Gilding
The teapot’s gilding was analyzed using Quantitative X-Ray Fluorescence
(XRF) analysis.4 Two areas were tested: a gilded area and a matte area,
or an area from which the gilding has disappeared. The results of the XRF
analysis showed that, as expected, most of the gilding is composed of gold
(table 1). Unexpected, however, were the lead counts: the results indicate
that there is about twice as much lead in the gilded area as in the matte
area.
| TABLE 1 |
| |
Co |
Ni |
Cu |
Zn |
Ag |
Au |
Sn |
Fe |
Pb |
As |
Mn |
| Gilded Area |
80.121 |
10.431 |
2.533 |
0.000 |
4.657 |
146.675 |
2.654 |
80.121 |
84.758 |
3.54 |
170.835 |
| Matte Area |
39.828 |
12.244 |
0.311 |
2.925 |
0.181 |
1.927 |
1.653 |
85.149 |
41.239 |
0.00 |
160.860 |
Results of XRF analysis: figures are given in counts/sec |
Père d’Entrecolles, a Jesuit priest who was stationed in China
in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, described in detail
a gilding process he witnessed in the ceramic factories of Jingdezhen. It
should be noted here that while some of the minutiae of the priest’s
accounts are clearly wrong, much of the information he relayed appears trustworthy.
In a letter sent on September 1, 1712, from Jao-chou, Kangxi province, the
Jesuit priest describes the sequence of decoration, firing, and applying
overglaze gilding in the manufacture of porcelain. After an initial firing,
gilding was put on the surface of the porcelain, which was then refired in
a special furnace.5 Père d’Entrecolles then outlines how the
gold and white lead mixture was prepared and applied:
When one wishes to apply gold, one grinds it and one mixes it in the bottom
of a porcelain vessel until one sees a little cloud of gold in the bottom
of the water. One allows it to dry and then uses it by mixing it in a suYcient
amount of gummed water. With thirty parts of gold one incorporates three
parts of white lead, and then one applies it to porcelain just like a colored
glaze.6
Evidently, the lead white or ceruse was employed as a ux to lower the much
higher melting point of the gold. As indicated in d’Entrecolles’s
letter, this use of lead white is undoubtedly related to its use, together
with gum water, in the preparation of overglaze, fired-on enamel colors in
Jingdezhen, described elsewhere and in greater detail by d’Entrecolles.7
While the results of the XRF analysis of the matte areas on the Getty teapot
indicate that lead, the metal with the lower melting point, is still on
the surface, or shallowly embedded therein, its presence may not be exclusively
responsible for the matte appearance of the glaze. Recently published is
an account of fired-on gilding from a probably much earlier date, discovered
on a Northern Song stoneware, a conical bowl with russet glaze.8 As in the
case of the Getty teapot, examination revealed patterns of “ghosts”
in areas believed to have been gilded on the interior of the eleventh-century
vessel. The “ghosts” seem to be permanently fixed in the glaze.9 Subtle clues in the appearance of the matte areas led the investigators
to believe that delicate patterns cut out of gold leaf, backed with a textile,
were bonded to the ceramic before firing with an unidentified adhesive. While
the authors admit there is no way to know whether garlic juice, as described
in the writings of the late Song literatus Zhou Mi (1232–1298), was
used in the preparation of the gold, they do believe that the gilding was
fired in place, as Zhou Mi’s accounts also suggest.
Identified with XRF analysis, the presence of lead in the gilding of the
Getty teapot is corroborated by Père d’Entrecolles’s accounts
of porcelain manufacture in Jingdezhen in the early eighteenth century.
While the presence of lead may be at least partially responsible for the
appearance of the matte areas on the surface of the glaze, it must be stressed
that similar matte patterns also appear to have been caused by a very diVerent,
lead-free gilding process. Further research might determine whether matte
patterns or “ghosts” on Chinese glazes can be reliably linked
to fired-on gilding processes, regardless of gilding composition or method
of application.
acknowledgments This research was carried out while I was a graduate
intern in the department of Decorative Art and Sculpture Conservation at
the J. Paul Getty Museum. For their support I would like to thank Brian
Considine and Jane Bassett of the department of Decorative Arts and Sculpture
Conservation; curator Gillian Wilson and associate curator JeVrey Weaver
at the J. Paul Getty Museum; as well as senior scientist Dr. David Scott
and graduate intern Satoko Tanimoto, both formerly of the Getty Conservation
Institute’s Museum Research Lab. I would also like to extend gratitude
to the Curator of Chinese Art, Robert D. Mowry, and assistant Adam Osgood
for allowing me to examine the bowl in the collection of the Arthur M. Sackler
Museum.
Lisa Ellis
Sherman Fairchild Fellow in Objects Conservation
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
<LEllis@mfa.org>
|