Imre Jakabffy (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 6. (Budapest, 1979)

KÁRPÁTI, Andrea: „Blanc de Chine" porcelain in the collection of the Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts

ope. This time the expert of Chinese porcelain need not rest content with a rough dynastical periodisation, the stylistic development of the blanc de Chine pieces can be accurately traced on the ground of concrete facts. It would be a mistake to group this ware together with the decorative figurines, produced in the other Chinese kilns at that period. The blanc de Chine porcelain is fired only once, the glaze and the mass constitue a perfect unity. The colour, the glitter, and the smooth surface of the ware is similar to ivory. This excellent sculptural material gains a perfect shape in the finely elaborated moulds of the masters. The ware bears not only a reign mark, dynasty mark and inscriptions, but often a potter's mark as well. (While the name of its maker is never to be found on any other type of contemporary Chinese porcelain.) The clay for the mass of blanc de Chine is hauled to the streams and ground, watered and purified several times until a suitable sculpture material is ready for the potter. After the ware has gained its final shape in the moulds or on the wheel, it is glazed and put into the kilns. The kilns usually consisted of 6 large compartments, built on a slope. The compartments, joint by openings, are heated by the lowest one, pre-heated air passes from here upwards, burning out the wares piled along the walls of the upper compartments. There is more felspar then kaolin in the glaze. Its transparence is produced by quartz. The glaze of the pieces produced in the 17th century and in the early part of the 18th century is creamy white (ivory), the glaze of later pieces being milkwhite. Both glazes are easily distinguishable from other white glazes used in Chinese factories at that period. One of them, the so-called Ting-Ware is always crackled, and the glaze used in Ching-te-chen is bluish milk white, and nontransparent. The difference between the figurines made here and the statuettes of Te-hua lies, however, not only in the quality of the glaze. A blanc de Chine is never an undecorated brique-a-brac, but a sculpture of plastic value, wich definitely rejects the use of mottled overpaint. In the Te-hua kilns, commodities (vessels, sealers, cups, etc.), vases, ritual objects (Taoist and Buddhist sculptures) and figurines after European models were produced. First we shall deal with the last two groups, beginning with some statuettes of Kuan-yin from the collection of our museum. The figure of the Indian boddhisatva, Avalókitesvara was brought over to China in the 7th century. From the 15th century onwards it is represented as a woman, in one of the following three principal forms: as „Kuan-yin", the goddes of mercy; as „Sung-tzu", ,,the giver of children", and „Kuo-hai", ,,the protector of the seamen". She is the most popular of the Buddhist goddesses. A great number of sacrificial figurines of her were made in Te-hua, for the principal shrine of her cult, P'u-t'o-shan, lay near the town, and offered an excellent market for these pieces. Three types of Kuan-yin representations are to be found in our collection: standing figures, seated figures, and figures on the throne, with all attributes. 1. KUAN-YIN, AS SUNG-TZU 94