The Secret of Colours: Ceramics in China and Europe from the 18th Century to the Present

The Baur Foundation, Museum of Far Eastern Art in Geneva holds a remarkable collection of Chinese enamelled porcelain dating from the reigns of the Kangxi (1662–1722), Yongzheng (1723–35) and Qianlong (1736–95) emperors. This collection will be the subject of an exhibition opening September 14, 2022, examining how the palette of coloured enamels developed as a result of interactions between China and the West. Technological exchange in the field of enamels has recently given rise to an extensive literature dwelling as much on the historical as on the physical and chemical aspects of this art form (Bellemare, 2021; Colomban et al., 2022; Shih, 2012). Such research, including Raman spectroscopy and X-ray fluorescence analyses, has enabled greater understanding of the Baur Foundation’s collection (Colomban et al., 2022). Taking this set of works as its starting point, the exhibition explores the processes of enquiry, research, and experimentation related to the development of colour in ceramics by focusing on two significant moments: the start of the 18th century in China and the second half of the 19th century in France. This article traces the colourful course that led to the realization of this exhibition and its catalogue.

In the first decades of the 18th century, a chromatic revolution took place in China in the field of enamel painting on glaze. Until then, wucai enamels, with their few translucent hues, were applied in flat tints, allowing at most slight variations in intensity in the hue itself but no mixing between colours. The introduction of a white enamel with a base of lead arsenic to opacify the colours during the last decades of the Kangxi reign made it possible to multiply infinitely the gradations of colours for enamels.

Pair of vases with butterfly and floral decoration on a carmine ground

China, Jingdezhen, Qing Dynasty, Qianlong mark and period (1736–95)

Yangcai porcelain with overglaze polychrome enamels and gold; 14 cm high

Baur Foundation, Museum of Far Eastern Arts, Geneva (CB-CC-1930-626)

Photograph: Marian Gérard. © The Baur Foundation, Museum of Far Eastern Art

This chromatic revolution was brought about by a period of productive exchange between China and the West. Reports by the Jesuits who were in attendance at the Chinese court at that time reveal the Kangxi Emperor’s early interest in European enamelled decoration (Loehr, 1962–63; Curtis, 2009). For the Jesuit missionaries received at the imperial court, European enamelled objects were superlative diplomatic gifts. For example, the National Palace Museum in Taipei holds two portraits painted on copper in Limoges enamels, which were created initially to decorate a purse but were taken to China, where they were used for a flint case (Notin, 2012). The presence of Limoges enamels in China is also illustrated by outstanding enamelled porcelains made in Jingdezhen that recreate the forms and decorations of those enamels on copper. The Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet has a pair of porcelain cups that imitate in every respect—even down to the monogram ‘IL’ inscribed in the bottom of the bowl—a Limoges enamel style introduced by Jacques I Laudin (c. 1627–95). The Kangxi Emperor demonstrated a particular fondness not only for enamelled objects themselves but also for their techniques. After the intentional failure at painting with enamels by the Jesuits Matteo Ripa (1682–1745) and Giuseppe Castiglione (1688–1766) (Loehr, 1962–63, p. 55), he requested the presence of a Western enameller, but it was not until the very end of his reign, in 1719, that the Jesuit Jean-Baptiste Gravereau (1690–1762) came to work as an enameller in Beijing’s workshops, when Chinese enamelling techniques had already significantly improved. Thus, the Kangxi Emperor’s attraction to enamelled decoration was not limited to simple curiosity but may have taken the form of a technological quest, driven by a desire for validity in the eyes of both past dynasties and Westerners (Shih, 2013). In 1689, he ordered the creation of enamelling workshops inside the Forbidden City, in the Hall of Mental Cultivation (Yangxindian). During the early decades of the 18th century, workshops for painting enamel on copper and porcelain were also set up in Canton, most likely to meet the ever-increasing demand of the East India companies for porcelain objects decorated in the latest styles—and sometimes made to order. The porcelain capital, Jingdezhen, was also quick to adopt the new colour palette and renew its entire production system in the process (Shih, in d’Abrigeon, 2022). The interaction between these three production sites, enabled by the movement of craftsmen and materials between them, was particularly favourable to innovation.

Lighter box
Limoges, China, Qing dynasty (1644–1911), 
end of the 17th century–beginning 
of the 18th century
Flint case inlaid with 
European painted enamel 
portraits on copper; 8.2 x 5.8 cm
The National Palace Museum, 
Taipei (gu-za 1055)

Pair of cups with handles
China, Qing dynasty, Kangxi period (1662–1722)
Porcelain with polychrome enamels over a wucai glaze; 
4.6 x 13.4 cm
Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet, Paris (G 4551 a, b)
Photograph: Richard Lambert. © MNAAG, Paris, 
Dist. RMN-Grand Palais

One of the first colours to embody specific characteristics of this new palette was an overglaze blue. It is not uncommon to see overglaze blue applied to the surfaces of wucai pieces from the end of the 17th century in the Kangxi era. As William D. Kingery and Pamela B. Vandiver have shown, this blue overglaze was the first instance of a lead-potassium-silicate formula that would become the norm for the famille rose (pink family) palette, perfected a few years later (Kingery and Vandiver, 1986, p. 373). More recent studies have shown that the arsenic-rich enamel probably originated in European ‘smalt’, a cobalt-rich glass, and would thus have been imported to East Asia (Giannini et al., 2017). Philippe Colomban’s studies at the Baur Foundation have demonstrated the presence of this type of arsenic-rich cobalt on a Kangxi imperial bowl that was probably painted in the imperial workshops in Beijing.

Bowl with floral and leaf scroll decoration on a yellow ground
China, Qing dynasty, Kangxi mark and period (1662–1722)
Porcelain with overglaze polychrome enamels; 12.5 cm high
Baur Foundation, Museum of Far Eastern Art, 
Geneva (CB-CC-1933-672)
Photograph: Marian Gérard. 
© The Baur Foundation, Museum of Far Eastern Art

Also representative of this new palette was the colour rose, whose tints—ranging from carmine to pale pink—inspired the creation of the term famille rose by two amateur French scholars in the 1860s: Albert Jacquemart (1808–75) and Edmond Le Blant (1818–97). This term, developed on the visual criteria of colour dominance, was originally applied to porcelain wares made for export. It distinguished between porcelains with enamelled decorations from the first half of the Kangxi era, dominated by green enamels (famille verte, wucai), from those produced at the end of his reign, using a new palette in which rose was fundamental. The terms famille verte and famille rose were first used in the 19th-century art market before being adopted by academic and specialist literature, and later in physical and chemical analyses. The rose in question is made from colloidal gold: nanoparticles are obtained from gold diluted in a strong acid solution called aqua regia, to which either tin (the famous ‘purple of Cassius’) or arsenic (‘Perrot red’) is added to precipitate the particles of gold. This technique, used in Europe in the production of coloured glass at least from the 17th century, was adapted in China, although we find that tin is absent in most of the pieces that have been analyzed (Kingery and Vandiver, 1986). In her study of a set of porcelain pieces from the collections of the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Meg C. Wang (Wang Chu-Ping) revealed this difference in formula through the presence of gold particles on the surfaces of the pieces examined under digital microscope (Wang, 2013). Similar analyses were conducted on certain porcelain pieces belonging to the Baur Foundation with Wang’s help: Figure 5 shows a piece on which gold particles are visible on the surface, in particular at the level of the overglaze polychrome enamel mark (Wang, 2022).

Cup with rose-pink ground and floral decoration
China, Qing dynasty, mark and reign of Yongzheng (1723–35)
Porcelain with polychrome overglaze enamels; 9 cm diam.
The Baur Foundation, Museum of Far Eastern Art, Geneva (CB-CC-1934-600)
Photograph: Marian Gérard. © The Baur Foundation, Museum of Far Eastern Art

Antimony yellow with a pyrochlore structure, also known as Naples yellow or tin yellow, was also significant in this enrichment of the palette. Previously, the yellow obtained from iron oxide had given a warm colour that is very different from the pale, lemony tints of Naples yellow, seen in pieces produced during the Kangxi and Yongzheng periods. This enhancement of the colour range is reflected in the Qing imperial records by the profusion of new terms used to describe the colours. In the catalogue for the present exhibition, Julie Bellemare describes the complexity of the terms and how they were used in the imperial workshops (Bellemare, in d’Abrigeon, 2022, pp. 66–87).

Almost a century later, the forced opening of China to Western trade made it possible for the Sèvres manufactory to investigate Chinese colours (d’Abrigeon, 2022). It was due to the inquisitive mind of the learned administrator Alexandre Brongniart (1770–1847) that, by the end of the 1850s, the Sèvres manufactory succeeded in putting together an extensive collection of materials used in the manufacture of Chinese porcelain, including a large number of colours. Beginning in the 1830s, Brongniart had attempted to acquire materials and information on Chinese production techniques by asking for the help of merchants and consuls of all nationalities who planned to travel to China. These endeavours remained fruitless until he came into contact with the congregation of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, whose Lazarist missionaries were established in China. The Sinologist Stanislas Julien (1797–1873), who regularly ordered Chinese books from the congregation, acted as an intermediary. The Chinese Lazarist priest Joseph Ly (Chinese name Li Yuese; 1803–54) was finally commissioned to collect materials from the Jingdezhen region, and in 1846 the cases he sent back arrived at the Sèvres manufactory for study. The collection is unique for the diversity of its materials and the extreme rigour with which it was put together: each sample was carefully labelled and classified on the basis of its nature. In addition to the clays and porcelain pastes from different regions around Jingdezhen, Ly brought back nineteen enamels of different colours. Many of the labels appended to the pigments still bear the names of the shops in which they were bought: for example, one belonged to a certain Hu Yisheng (胡義勝號). Sometimes the materials were wrapped in the shops’ advertisements, as is the case for the gold leaf that Ly purchased in a shop on the Street of the First Laureate (Zhuang Yuanfang) in Canton—an area that was, at that time, off limits to foreigners, whose trade with China was carried out from the factories on the outskirts of the city.

Album of labels of samples sent by Father Joseph Ly to 
the manufactory of Sèvres, p. 2
c. 1844
ink on paper; 35 x 23.5 cm
Sèvres – Manufacture et Musée nationaux, Archives du musée céramique de Sèvres, Missions, Asie, Chine (4W388)
© Pauline d’Abrigeon

Advertising Leaflet for Deng Yongji’s shop
China, Jingdezhen, Qing dynasty, 
Daoguang period (1821–50), c. 1844
Detail taken from the album of labels of samples sent by 
Father Joseph Ly to the manufactory of Sèvres, p. 27
ink on paper
Archives du musée céramique de Sèvres, 
Missions, Asie, Chine (4W388)
© Pauline d’Abrigeon

Shortly after Father Ly assembled his collections, Jules Itier (1802–77) became a member of a trade delegation as part of the China Mission (1844)—also known as the Lagrené Mission after the plenipotentiary minister Théodose de Lagrené (1800–62), who headed it—which was sent to China at the end of the First Opium War (1839–42). Its aim was to gain for France the same commercial advantages as those won by Great Britain at the signing of the Treaty of Nanking (August 26, 1842). Itier took advantage of his stay in Canton to observe enamelling techniques and to bring samples back to the Sèvres manufactory. Having succeeded in getting access to ‘the workshops of Canton’s largest manufacturer’ on the island of Henan, he bribed a craftsman with a few piastres to allow him to take brushes, colour pots, and other equipment used in enamel painting. He visited the kilns, of which he gave a detailed description, and acquired samples of nineteen colours, all wrapped in small square sheets of paper and inscribed with Chinese characters, some of which are still marked with the colours of the pigments they contained. Just a few years later, the British consul in Shanghai, Rutherford Alcock (1809–97), also sent a considerable number of enamels to the Sèvres manufactory. The three collections were analyzed by the chief chemist at the manufactory, Alphonse Salvétat (1820–82), and were found to be mostly enamels for the firing of overglaze decorations, to which was added a set of “cobalt” from the mines in Yunnan. As no copper red—a highly sought-after colour by manufacturers at that time—was included in the samples brought back by Joseph Ly, Salvétat took samples directly from existing pieces and in 1848 succeeded in producing an exceptional copper-red porcelain cup (d’Albis, in d’Abrigeon, 2022, pp. 130–35). Unfortunately, to this day almost none of the enamel samples survive, and only two albums, in which the labels were recorded, have been found in the museums' archives: one belonging to the Sèvres manufactory and the other to the École des Mines (Musée de minéralogie Mines ParisTech, Catalogue 1336 chinois).

After the Second Opium War (1856–60), the number of foreigners in China grew. The French chemist Anatole Billequin (1836–94), a teacher at Tungwen College (Tongwenguan) in Beijing, was commissioned to bring Chinese ceramics back to the Sèvres manufactory. He made several shipments between 1876 and 1878, not of materials but of finished objects, which once again were carefully labelled. This identification allowed the director of the manufactory, Édouard Gerspach (1833–1906), to study the nomenclature of Chinese colours, which he described in two articles published in the Gazette des beaux-arts (in the 1877 and 1882 issues). For the first time, precise knowledge of the terms associated with each colour was presented as a prerequisite for understanding Chinese colourful glazes. Certain colours are particularly noted by the author, such as mule’s liver or horse’s lung (lügan mafei), on which Gerspach heaped praise, and eel-skin yellow (shanyu huang), a colour that was little present in French collections at the time.

Vase with an ovoid belly and tubular neck
China, Qing dynasty, Tongzhi mark and 
period (1861–75)
Porcelain with eel-yellow glaze; 34 cm high
Sent to the Manufacture de Sèvres by 
Anatole Billequin in October 1878
Sèvres, Manufacture et musée nationaux 
(MNC 8623.1)
Photograph: Stéphane Maréchalle. 
© RMN-Grand Palais (Sèvres – Manufacture 
et musée nationaux)

Stem cup
China, Jingdezhen, Yuan Dynasty (1260–1368), second half of the 14th century
Porcelain with copper red glaze; 8.5 x 9 cm
The Baur Foundation, Museum of Far Eastern Art, Geneva (CB-CC-1939-138)
Photograph: Marian Gérard. © The Baur Foundation, Museum of Far Eastern Art

The last chapter in this saga of Chinese colours was the Scherzer mission. The French consul in Hankou, Georges Francisque Fernand Scherzer (1849–86), spent nearly three weeks observing manufacturing techniques in Jingdezhen. Initially disappointed by his visit to the imperial kilns (yuyaochang) because he arrived too late to observe the preparation of high-temperature coloured glazes, the last batch of which had just been delivered to Beijing, he obtained information mainly from private manufacturers: the workshops belonging to the Lin, Li, and Tang families. He enquired about a large number of sometimes arduously acquired formulas, which he recorded in a report. In addition, he purchased raw enamels ‘from the Kiang-Ho mao shop’ and enamels ground by the Lin family, which mostly originated in Canton. But the Scherzer mission probably took place too late to be of any real interest to the Sèvres manufactory, which since 1884 had perfected its own new porcelain (abbreviated PN), whose new decorative possibilities seemed to reduce interest in Chinese techniques (d’Albis, in d’Abrigeon, 2022, p. 124).

The last section of the exhibition opens the way to more contemporary research into colour. The work of ceramist Fance Franck (1927–2008) provides a significant example. Beginning in 1969, Franck undertook a series of experiments to find out how to obtain ‘fresh red’ (xianhong) and ‘sacrificial red’ (jihong) from glaze coloured with copper. Like the potters of Jingdezhen several centuries earlier, she was confronted with the extreme volatility of this pigment, which demands perfect control of high-temperature reduction firing to form copper nanoparticles of specific size in the glaze. Even if the pigment is applied in the same way and same proportion to two pieces of the same shape—and they are fired in a similar way—the result is often a completely different-coloured effect (Franck, 1992). In 1971–72, Franck performed tests over several months. Antoine d’Albis, head chemist at the Sèvres manufactory, provided her with a porcelain paste of his own composition for her to carry out these tests, and, in the spring of 1972, she succeeded in producing pieces that satisfied her. She then went to the Percival David Foundation in London where, with the encouragement of well-known specialists John Pope and Margaret Medley, she compared her experiments with the copper reds of the Ming dynasty. In addition to the technical process, Franck immersed herself in the symbolism of the colour and its significance in Chinese linguistics and mythology as well as its place in the history of Chinese ceramics. Franck’s research led her to visit numerous collections, including the Baur Foundation’s, where then-curator Frank Dunand showed her a ‘fascinating stemcup’ (Franck, 1992, p. 82) dating from the second half of the 14th century, shown here in Figure 9. The Foundation therefore reconnects with its history by presenting, in this exhibition, some of the artist’s finished pieces as well as a large number of test pieces from the Fance Franck workshop collection.

In order to conclude this tribute to contemporary creation and to ensure that this exhibition harmonizes with the theme of the 50th Congress of the International Academy of Ceramics, which will be held in Geneva in September, the Baur Foundation brings this long, chromatic journey to a close with a presentation of works by the Austrian artist Thomas Bohle (b. 1958). The pure forms of his works yield to the poetics of the glaze that coats their surfaces like coloured energy. In an interview, the artist readily admits that copper red is still a difficult colour to control in spite of the great technical mastery he demonstrates in his works. Bohle’s works will be on display in both the temporary and permanent exhibition spaces, thereby creating a chromatic dialogue across the centuries.

Large dish
Thomas Bohle (Austrian, b. 1958)
Double-walled stoneware with oxblood enamel exterior and feldspathic matte-black glaze (cobalt, chrome, iron, copper);
17.8 x 65.5 cm
Musée Ariana, Geneva (AR 2015-166)
© Frigesch Lampelmayer

The museum is very grateful to Philippe Colomban, Michele Gironda, and Meg C. Wang for having carried out analyses of the Baur Foundation’s enamelled porcelain collection between July 2021 and April 2022.

Pauline d’Abrigeon is conservator at Baur Foundation.

Selected bibliography

Pauline d’Abrigeon, ed., with contributions by Pauline d’Abrigeon, Antoine d’Albis, Julie Bellemare, Tang Hui, Marie Wyss, Shih Ching-fei, and Xu Xiaodong, The Secret of Colours: Ceramics in China and Europe from the 18th Century to the Present, Milan, 2022.

Julie Bellemare, ‘“A New Creation of This Dynasty”: Enamels, Glass, and the Deployment of Color in Qing China, 1700–1735’. PhD diss., Bard College, 2021.

Philippe Colomban, Gulsu Simsek Franci, Michele Gironda, Pauline D’Abrigeon, and Anne-Claire Schumacher, ‘pXRF Data Evaluation Methodology for On-site Analysis of Precious Artifacts: Cobalt Used in the Blue Decoration of Qing Dynasty Overglazed Porcelain Enameled at Custom District (Guangzhou), Jingdezhen and Zaobanchu (Beijing) Workshops’, Heritage 5, no. 3 (July 2022): 1752–1778, https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage5030091.

Emily Byrne Curtis, Glass Exchange Between Europe and China, 1550–1800: Diplomatic, Mercantile and Technological Interactions, Farnham, VT, 2009.

Fance Franck, ‘Study of Fresh Red Porcelain Glaze: A Potter’s View’, in Rosemary E. Scott, ed., Chinese Copper Red Wares, London, 1992, pp. 76–92.

Rita Giannini, Ian C. Freestone, and Andrew J. Shortland, ‘European Cobalt Sources Identified in the Production of Chinese Famille Rose Porcelain’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 80 (2017): 27–36.

William David Kingery and Pamela B. Vandiver, ‘The Eighteenth-Century Change in Technology and Style from the Famille-Verte Palette to the Famille-Rose Palette’, in William David Kingery, ed., Technology and Style, Colombus, 1986, 2:363–81.

George Loehr, ‘Missionary-Artists at the Manchu Court’, Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society 34 (1962–63): 51–67.

Véronique Notin, ‘L’émail peint: de Limoges à Pékin’, Bulletin de la Société archéologique et historique du Limousin 140 (2012): 88–89.

Ching-fei Shih, Ri yue guang hua: Qinggong huafalang, ed. The National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2012.
—, ‘Wenhua jingzhi: Chaoyue shidai pimei xiyang de Kangxi chao qinggong huafalang’ (Cultural Contending: Kangxi Painted Enamelware as Global Competitor), Minsu qu yi, no. 182 (2013): 149–219.
Meg C. Wang, ‘Eighteenth-Century Chinese Painted Enamelware Materials and Techniques’, Baur Foundation Bulletin 80 (2022), forthcoming.
—, ‘Jinhong cai liao zai Kang Yong shiqi falang caici de shiyong qingxing’, in Porcelain with Painted Enamels of Qing Yongzheng period (1723–1735), Taipei, 2013, pp. 298–313.

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