‘Decolonizing’ Chinese Porcelains: Ernest Grandidier’s Collecting and Display at the 19th Century Louvre

The 19th century, which witnessed unprecedentedly close, albeit unequal, contact between Europe and China, provides a wide range of hybrid artistic representations that have amazed art lovers both visually and culturally. One of the key forms of Western representation of China is, of course, the collection and display of Chinese artefacts and artworks—especially in France, a country with a long history of admiration, collection, and appropriation of Chinese art. After the opening of ports in China through the Treaty of Nanjing (1842), greater numbers of bourgeoisie were able to collect Chinese artefacts through curio shops, business contacts, and/or trips to China. Ernest Grandidier (1833–1912), who owned one of the largest and most well-known collections of Chinese art, can be positioned within this historical trend. His collection of more than 6,000 porcelain items was installed at the Louvre Museum in 1894 by the collector himself.

Building on a rare article on the collection by Xavier Besse (1971–), published in Orientations twenty years ago (Besse, 2001), my research pushes beyond Grandidier’s biography and collecting practices to include subsequent steps taken and a stronger consideration of the 19th century public and sociopolitical context (Wong, 2017). How was the collection displayed in the Louvre? And how was Chinese culture as a concept represented to the public by the collector, the museum, and the state? By focusing on these two questions this article aims to take the collection beyond the general collecting trend of the late 19th century, and suggests the collector and the museum introduced new collecting and display techniques that helped move French interpretation of Chinese art from an exotic, commercial, and imperialist mode to a more aesthetic, scientific, and cross-cultural one.

Grandidier had shown a strong interest in Chinese porcelains and respect for Chinese culture long before the installation of his collection in 1894. After serving under the Council of State of the Second Empire, he started his studies and collecting of Chinese porcelains in 1875 (Koechlin, 1914, p. 9). Such a dedicated study of another culture was grounded in his belief in cultural universality, a unique perspective that ran counter to the popular imperialist discourse of the time. In his travel journal of Peru and Bolivia, published in 1861, he challenged the notion that South American civilizations were ‘enlightened’ by other cultures and suggested that all nations have mainly developed from within (Grandidier, 1861, p. 86). He also proposed that every culture features a similar ‘physical and moral nature’ and shares a ‘similar mind which moves within the same goal and same end’ (ibid). In his later 1894 monograph on Chinese ceramics, La céramique chinoise, the collector expressed a strong admiration for Chinese porcelain and repeatedly contrasted it with European porcelain (Fig. 1), stating very clearly in his introduction:

The products of our factories in Europe are fading and are overshadowed by the brilliance of oriental porcelains. The inferiority comes from less-refined methods and modes of use of colouring agents.… China understands ceramics decoration better than us. It represents their conceptions in a more striking language; the decorative art speaks its native language with eloquence and perfection. (Grandidier, 1894, p. 2)

Fig. 1 *La céramique chinoise*, 1894
By Ernest Grandidier
Image courtesy of Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica) http://gallica.bnf.fr

Despite his notion of cultural universality, Grandidier recognized China’s superiority in porcelain-making and believed that learning from the country could help raise the success of the French nation artistically and commercially.

Grandidier’s collecting practice was not just driven by the charm of exoticism—it was an academic, conscientious, and long-term focus. The more than 200-page La céramique chinoise published the year of his installation at the Louvre best records and testifies to the time and effort he devoted to the collection. Using pieces from his collection as examples and illustrations, the publication offered the public one of the most extensive textual introductions to Chinese porcelain available, covering such topics as origins, kilns, textures, colours, subject matters, decoration, and reigns (Grandidier, 1894). Having a great sense of the contents and limitations of other existing collections in France, Britain, and the United States, Grandidier expressed in his book his intention to form the best collection in Europe for France in terms of ‘completeness and quality’, which he regarded as the two most important collecting criteria (ibid., pp. 4–6). For completeness, he advanced an eclectic policy: the collecting of ‘all genres, all types, and all times’ (ibid., p. 5). In terms of quality, on the other hand, he favoured porcelains made for local consumption rather than export pieces which he thought were ‘less instructive and less beautiful’ (ibid., p. 6). According to Raymond Koechlin (1860–1931), collector, politician, and general secretary of the Friends of the Louvre, Grandidier sold his family property in Corbeil in exchange for porcelains and was said to have continued collecting after his donation to the Louvre and even while dying on his sickbed (Koechlin, 1914, p. 12).

Choosing the Louvre, the national museum of highest reputation, as the repository of his great collection was not random (Fig. 2). Unlike collectors such as the couple Adolphe d’Ennery (1811–99) and Clémence d’Ennery (1823–98) and Henri Cernuschi (1821–96), Grandidier chose not to display the porcelains in his home. That choice positioned his collection in a spectrum between a display of French imperialism and the open cultural appreciation of another nation. Indeed, the expansion of the Louvre’s collection in the 19th century from European to Eastern culture coincided with the expansionist actions of successive French governments, from the founding of the Egyptian collection following the expedition of Napoleon to the formation of the Salle d’Orient (Orient Room) for Muslim art correspondent to France’s intervention in the Near East during the reign of Napoleon III (Koechlin, 1914, pp. 3–5).

Fig. 2 Louvre Museum in Paris—the Grandidier collection was located in the Denon Wing, on right
Photograph; c. 1875–1900
Image courtesy of the Rijksmuseum

However, following the looting of the Yuanmingyuan (Old Summer Palace) by both British and French troops during the Second Opium War (1860), the call to establish an ‘Oriental Museum’ at the Louvre—raised in the 1870s by Henry Barbet de Jouy (1812–96), director of the Musées nationaux—was not accomplished. Instead, when the new museum was established for the Grandidier collection in 1894, a non-colonialist context emerged. In a report on the fine arts budget of 1881, Edouard Lockory (1838–1913), a deputy of the chamber, noted that France had lost its prominence in the decorative arts, with Britain and Germany already rivalling French fabrications in ceramics and glass, and advocated the importance of decorative arts education (as cited in Sherman, 1988, p. 342). In step with Lockory’s view on the close relationship between decorative art and the national pride, Koechlin, in narrating the process by which the Grandidier donation was accepted, reported that Chinese porcelains were ‘treasures’ that could provide ‘models for artists’ to facilitate ‘the progress of decorative art’ and prevent the Louvre from ‘remaining backwards’, especially against the competition of the South Kensington Museum (today the Victoria and Albert Museum) inheriting the Georges Salting (1835–1909) collection (Koechlin, 1914, p. 11).

Fig. 3 Plan of the entresol and ground floors of the Louvre where the Denon Wing was located
Photograph in print; 1914
(After Mayer, *The Louvre Up-To-Date*, Paris, 1914)
Image courtesy of Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica) http://gallica.bnf.fr

In 1894, instead of being integrated into a smaller collection of Chinese artefacts primarily collected by military generals and diplomats under the maritime museum at the Louvre, Grandidier’s collection was installed in a new space established in the Denon Wing—under the name the Musée d’Extrême-Orient (Museum of the Far East). It occupied the long rectangular space on the entresol on the ground floor (Fig. 3) below the famous grand gallery for Italian School paintings. The promising area matched with the ambitions of both Gaston Migeon (1861–1930), curator of the department of objects d'art, and Grandidier, newly appointed curator of the Musée de l’Extrême-Orient, to expand and ‘complete’ the collection as well as provide a pleasurable visual experience to the visitor (Musée du Louvre, 1897, p. 24; Guide Joanne, 1912, p. 63). To enhance visual attention to the artistic value of the porcelains, the space was specially designed. The entresol, which featured more rooms (eleven, plus two long galleries) than other spaces in the Denon Wing, created visual divisions favourable for allowing the visitor to concentrate on the details of the porcelain works. The vitrines, according to Koechlin, were in monochrome and simple rectangular form so as not to divert the audience’s attention, as in the galleries of western ceramics (Koechlin, 1914, p. 11). Light was sufficiently provided through windows facing the Seine. To avoid overcrowding, the collector transferred some pieces considered secondary in terms of aesthetics to the Musée de Rouen (ibid., p. 12). On the other hand, trying not to sacrifice ‘completeness’, Grandidier used consoles with more than four levels of shelves to create additional space for display (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4 Statuettes, vases, and cups from the Grandidier collection
Photograph in print; by 1920
(After Geffroy, *Le Louvre: architecture, mobilier, objet*, Paris, 1920, p. 105)
Image courtesy of Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica) http://gallica.bnf.fr

The collector’s specific display was one of the first to perform a cautious balance between the presentation of knowledge and aesthetics, encouraging the audience to appreciate objects for both their historical and artistic values simultaneously. Given Grandidier’s extensive knowledge, he adopted a more scientific approach than most, dividing and classifying his collection into four types chronologically, namely: Song (960–1279) and Yoeun [Yuan] (1272–1368); Ming (1368–1644); Khang-hi [Kangxi] (1662–1722); and Yung-Tching [Yongzheng] (1723–35) and Kian-long [Qianlong] (1736–95) (Grandidier, 1894, pp.139–40). The rare photograph I found in a Louvre catalogue published by the 1920s exemplifies his categorization in display, showing a cabinet dedicated to porcelains that Grandidier attributed to the Kangxi era (see Fig. 4). From his monograph, we know that the Song cabinets would have displayed porcelain pieces made in ‘Kiun’ [Jun], ‘Ting’ [Ding], and ‘Long-tsiouen’ [Longquan] kilns, while Ming shelves would contain oeuvres in blue-and-white, tri-colour, and five-colours; for the Kangxi category, the collector presented works of tri- and five-colours and a series of monochromes including white, celadon, red, yellow, blue, brown, violet, and green, while what his contemporaries called ‘famille rose’ (Fig. 5)—a term Grandidier considered problematic—was a focus for the Yongzheng/Qianlong vitrines along with a variety of monochrome works (Fig. 6) (ibid., pp. 143–204).

Grandidier chose not to make further classifications under these four main categories, despite the great knowledge shown in his book for categorization in terms of kiln, minor technique, colour, subject matter, and usage/forms. He explained his display aesthetics:

I do not even advise attempting a normal order of classification in the cabinets of a collection; the main purpose of the enlightened amateur is to satisfy the eye in the arrangement of specimens and to obey the law of aesthetic propriety. The porcelain artist is a painter and decorator; his covers [decoration on glaze] have to be placed in the best conditions for a fair trial, in order to compose a very loving and harmonious [effect] without scientific concern. The beauty of the whole resulting from the happy arrangement of decoration and graceful grouping of shapes, such is ideal for a man of taste. (Grandidier, 1894, p. 142)

Stressing the importance of generating a perceptual and pleasurable sentiment from aesthetic richness and variation in each vitrine (see Fig. 4), Grandidier arranged the vases in a conscious alternation of size, shape, and colour to avoid repetitiveness and retain the individuality of each object. Another notable, interrelated technique is the visual integration of polychrome (see Fig. 5) and monochrome (see Fig. 6) as can be especially observed in the lowest shelf, since he regarded isolation of the latter as ‘not favourable’, while its visual combination with the polychrome ‘cast a friendly and harmonious note’ (ibid., p. 73).

While aiming to compile and present the most complete collection of Chinese porcelain in Europe, the collector and the museum demonstrated a parallel between Grandidier’s collection and the long tradition of Chinese art collecting in France. Having displayed more polychrome works than monochrome, Grandidier explained his preference for the polychrome consciously in relation to 18th century French collecting history:

The eighteenth century, so refined in its tastes, judged it [polychrome porcelain] so and would not have disagreed with our verdict, we affirm without hesitation. Also, it was figured nobly in the famous collections of this luxurious time, in the houses of the most distinguished lords, in the houses of all elite amateurs, alongside the most esteemed works of [Western] art, among the paintings of masters chosen with the most careful judgement and deepest science. (Grandidier, 1894, p. 74)

In the idea that his ‘refined taste’ connected him to the 18th century upper class—as shown through their mutual collecting of Chinese polychrome porcelains—Grandidier subordinated himself as part of the long history of French connoisseurship of Chinese porcelain, a source of pride. Moreover, his decision to display the collection in the Louvre with European masterpieces furthers the parallel with his 18th century exemplars, who, through chinoiserie, manifested an equal appreciation of both Chinese and Western art. The aesthetics of alternation that Grandidier applied in his display discussed above also echoed, if not copied, the 18th century display mode represented in the rooms of kings at the Louvre.

At the same time, Grandidier and the Louvre also attempted to make a presentation of the history of Chinese art collecting in France by relocating Chinese oeuvres originally in the Louvre collection. Firstly, in 1901, not long after Grandidier’s collection had been installed, a number of Chinese artworks that had been owned by French kings were moved from storage in the courtyard of the Louvre into the rooms of French furniture newly established in the Sully Pavilion (Vasselot, 1929, p. I). Secondly, by the 1920s, a famous lacquer collection belonging to Marie Antoinette (1755–93) was transferred to the Musée d’Extrême-Orient to compose a historical continuum of Chinese art collecting in France between the 18th and 19th centuries (Mayer, 1914, p. 140). From a set of photographs taken by the 1920s and published in a Louvre catalogue, we can see that several eye-catching sets of Chinese porcelains were on display, echoing the newly installed Grandidier collection. For example, the room of Louis XVI featured a pair of mounted celadon-glazed vases attributed to China, separated by a European bust sculpture positioned between them (Figs 7–8). By transferring Chinese objects owned by the imperial family to the new display of French imperial culture, the museum strengthened the link between the Grandidier collection and French history, as well as illustrated the long record of artistic and imperial exchange between France and China, softening the not-too-distant mid-19th century history of imperialism.

In recent decades, decolonization, an ideology and discourse to acknowledge, critique, and analyse Western imperialism over the East, has become an almost universal framework in collecting history studies. Both curators and scholars are conducting various programmes to ‘decolonize’ the history of their museum collections and make their institutions more open and equal to people of all races and nationalities. However, this article, which reveals the other side of the imperialist story, aims to ask for a reconsideration of our 21st century post-colonialist discourse on 19th century Europe. While not denying the wider imperialist context, beginning with Grandidier’s case we might be able to rediscover a few individuals who subtly ‘decolonized’ themselves as early as the 19th century—and this might help achieve decolonization in a broader sense.

Yuet Heng Wong is a PhD candidate in History of Art and Archaeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the University of London.

All translations are by the author.

Selected Bibliography:

Xavier Besse, ‘A Passion for Chinese Ceramics: The Story of the Ernest Grandidier Collection’, Orientations 32, no. 1 (2001): 58–63.

Gustave Geffroy, Le Louvre: architecture, mobilier, objet, Paris, 1920.

Ernest Grandidier, Voyages dans l’Amérique du Sud: Pérou et Bolivie, Paris, 1861.

—, La céramique chinoise: Porcelaine orientale: date de sa découverte, explication de sujets de décor, Paris, 1894.

Guide Joanne: Le Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1912.

Daniel Sherman, ‘Art Museums, Inspections, and the Limits to Cultural Policy in the Early Third Republic’, Historical Reflections 15, no. 2 (Summer 1988): 337–59.

Raymond Koechlin, Les Collections d’Extrême-Orient du Musée du Louvre et la donation Grandidier: Notice lue à l’Assemblée générale annuelle de la Société des Amis du Louvre le 16 Janvier 1914, Paris, 1914.

Frederic Mayer, The Louvre Up-To-Date, Paris, 1914.

Musée du Louvre, Musée du Louvre: Guide Marsay, premier série: Paris et ses Merveilles, Paris, 1897.

Jean-Joseph Marquet de Vasselot, ‘Preface’, in Gaston Migeon, Les Collections d’Extrême-Orient, Paris, 1929.

Yuet Heng Wong, ‘The Display of Chinese Art in Late 19th-century French Houses and Museums’, MPhil dissertation, University of Hong Kong, 2017.

This article first featured in our September/ October 2021 print issue. To read more, purchase the full issue here.

To read more of our online content, return to our Home page.

‘Decolonizing’ Chinese Porcelains: Ernest Grandidier’s Collecting and Display at the 19th Century Louvre

An Interview with Dr. Katherine Crawford Luber

An Interview with Dr Ulrike Al-Khamis: Interim Director and CEO, Aga Khan Museum