Japanese and Chinese Porcelains and the Role of Jesuit Missionaries
Résumé
The role of Jesuit missionaries from Europe (predominantly Portugal, Spain and France) to the Imperial Courts of Japan and China in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and their influence upon the production and decoration of Arita and Chinese porcelains imported into Europe. The critical revelation of the composition and production processes of Chinese porcelains at Jingdezhen by Father Xavier Dentrecolles in Peking to his superior Father Orry in Paris in the first two decades of the eighteenth century and its impetus on European porcelain manufacture thereafter. The Jesuits and their diplomatic gifts of Limoges, Blois and Paris enamelled metalwares to the Emperor Kangxi and the resultant upsurge in the Chinese polychrome porcelain decoration and trade with Europe in pigments, especially cobalt blue, gold rose and Naples yellow: the rise of famille verte and famille rose decorated porcelains.