This fickle, fascinating thing is like an oil slick on water, or drops of paint in a layer of thick cream. It’s a different technique than I’ve seen used before or since, and I kind of feel like it was an experiment gone a bit awry – but that’s why I adore it.
Tag: porcelain
Wednesday
I always end up in front of this particular dish because it is just visually arresting. It just sucks you in and holds you tight and shakes you a little (for your lunch money, maybe? for your immortal soul?).
Tuesday
Even into the 1830s, sugar was the backbone of the British economy in the western part of the empire (aka, the West Indies, aka, the former slave colonies, aka, the triangle trade, and so on and so forth, nasty little piece of history, but yeah), until it was replaced by cotton and the mills and cheap works in the industrial north of England. As such, ornate sugar bowls were a must on every table that was well enough to do to have sugar on it – even the lower middle class tables that were just scraping by. If you had a good sugar bowl, you were high enough in the world to not be tomorrow’s trash. Sad, but true. This is an example of a fairly middle to upper-middle class sugar bowl – it definitely wouldn’t have graced a ranking aristocrat’s table, but it would have been enough for his servants’ hall.
Monday
I love that this seems so simplistic – there is no color, no gilding, no over the top – and yet, it is beyond ornate and it is very deliberate in its attempt to stand above the rest by being just so.
Sunday
This is the kind of thing I think of when I see the Dowager Countess of Grantham taking tea on Downton Abbey: ostentatious overkill in the glamour department. But it’s oh so smart and it was just what the upper classes wanted to make themselves feel superior. Mission accomplished.
Thursday
(I wish I could’ve gotten a better photo of this jar because it’s absolutely stunning. However, it’s displayed in such a way that it just isn’t possible without glare at almost every angle – except this one.)
So, Japanese blue porcelain – true examples of it aren’t very common because they tended to break up the blue with other colors or metallic glazes, so when you find a good example, it’s usually not this large or detailed. It’s usually smaller and plate, saucer, or cup.
Thursday
Again with the Rococo and its erotic imagery.
Monday
Oh, man, this is so naughty in so many ways. It’s so Rococo it hurts. It’s indulgent and frivolous and all the things that the aristocracy was supposed to be.
Thursday
This vase is simply designed but elegant, and as such, is unerringly beautiful. The variance of lines and shadow in the blue glaze is not easily achieved, and as such, should be marveled at.
Saturday
It’s difficult to see in the photos, but the glaze really reflects the light and comes off as almost metallic in many ways. I love these particular dishes because they are simple in their overall design but very complex in their execution. They are not dishes for the faint of heart, and, if you know me at all, you know that I am anything but a simpering twit. These are the dishes of a household of distinction – with a warrior’s twist.