The Fonthill Vase, also called the Gaignières-Fonthill Vase after
François Roger de Gaignières and
William Beckford's
Fonthill Abbey, is a bluish-white ''
Qingbai''
Chinese porcelain
Chinese ceramics are one of the most significant forms of Chinese art and ceramics globally. They range from construction materials such as bricks and tiles, to hand-built pottery vessels fired in bonfires or kilns, to the sophisticated Chinese ...
vase dated to 1300–1340 AD.
[Victoria and Albert Museum](_blank)
/ref> It is famous as the earliest documented Chinese porcelain
Porcelain (), also called china, is a ceramic material made by heating Industrial mineral, raw materials, generally including kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The greater strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to oth ...
object to have reached Europe.[Stacey Pierson (2007), ''Collectors, Collections, and Museums: the Field of Chinese Ceramics in Britain, 1560–1960'', Oxford: Peter Lang, , p. 17.]
The vase is an early piece of Jingdezhen porcelain
Jingdezhen porcelain () is Chinese ceramics, Chinese porcelain produced in or near Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province in southern China. Jingdezhen may have produced pottery as early as the sixth century CE, though it is named after the reign name o ...
, and comes from the final years of ''Qingbai'' ware in Jingdezhen
Jingdezhen is a prefecture-level city in eastern Jiangxi province with a total population of 1,669,057 (2018), bordering Anhui to the north. It is known as the "Porcelain Capital" because it has been producing Chinese ceramics for at least 1,0 ...
before it was replaced by the new blue and white porcelain
"Blue and white pottery" () covers a wide range of white pottery and porcelain decorated underglaze, under the glaze with a blue pigment, generally cobalt(II) oxide, cobalt oxide. The decoration was commonly applied by hand, originally by brush p ...
, which started in earnest after 1320. It is an unusual "experimental" vase with applied relief
Relief is a sculpture, sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''wikt:relief, relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give ...
decoration in the medallions, in the usual monochrome blueish-white Qingbai glaze.
After probably arriving in Europe when nearly new, the history of the vase can mostly be documented. Eventually it reached the National Museum of Ireland
The National Museum of Ireland () is Ireland's leading museum institution, with a strong emphasis on national and some international archaeology, Irish history, Irish art, culture, and natural history. It has three branches in Dublin, the arch ...
in 1882,[ Lauren Arnold, ''Princely Gifts and Papal Treasures: the Franciscan mission to China and its influence on the arts of the West'', 1999:133''ff''](_blank)
/ref> and in 2018 was on display in the "Curator's Choice" permanent display at the National Museum of Ireland – Decorative Arts and History
National may refer to:
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* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
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( Collins Barracks, Dublin).
History
The vase was first part of a collection of Louis the Great of Hungary, who seems to have received it from a Chinese embassy on its way to visiting Pope Benedict XII in 1338. The vase was then mounted with a silver handle and base, transforming it into a ewer and transferred as a gift to his Angevin kinsman Charles III of Naples in 1381.[Stacey Pierson (2007), ''Collectors, Collections, and Museums: the Field of Chinese Ceramics in Britain, 1560–1960'', Oxford: Peter Lang, , p. 18.]
Various subsequent owners are known, such as the duc de Berry and the Grand Dauphin (son of Louis XIV
LouisXIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the List of longest-reign ...
). By the end of the 17th century, the vase was in the possession of François Lefebvre de Caumartin
François Lefebvre de Caumartin or Jean François Paul Lefèvre de Caumartin (16 December 1668 in Châlons-en-Champagne – 30 August 1733 in Blois) was a French bishop.
He was elected member of the Académie Française in 1694 and member of th ...
, who let it be represented in a watercolour
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour ( Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting method"Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to the ...
painting by François Roger de Gaignières in 1713.[''Circa 1492. Art in the Age of Exploration'' p.131] The vase was later in the possession of William Beckford at Fonthill Abbey, and was then sold to John Farquhar in 1822.
Its silver mounts were removed in the 19th century, and the vase reappeared in 1882 at a sale of Beckford's heirs at Hamilton Palace without its mount, "and its history had somehow been forgotten". It was bought by the National Museum of Ireland for about £28. It was only in 1959 that Arthur Lane, the ceramics curator of the Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...
in London, reconnected the vase with its earlier history.[Fuchs]
Jean, duc de Berry is known to have had a similar Chinese porcelain vase in his collection when he died in 1416, although it is unknown how he acquired it. This indicates that "the Gaignieres-Fonthill vase was not the only specimen of its kind n Europe at the time. These vases testify to a lost era of exchanges between China and Europe during Medieval times, which can also be seen in pictorial arts with the adoption of some Chinese stylistic conventions in Western painting, such as in the works of Giotto
Giotto di Bondone (; – January 8, 1337), known mononymously as Giotto, was an List of Italian painters, Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the International Gothic, Gothic and Italian Ren ...
and his followers.
Notes
Sources
*Fuchs, Ronald W. II
"A History of Chinese Export Porcelain in Ten Objects"
(as "Vase", first object), ''Ceramics in America 2014'', Chipstone Foundation (with good photo)
{{Porcelain
Individual pieces of porcelain
Collection of the National Museum of Ireland
Chinese ceramic works
Diplomatic gifts
Individual vases