Drawing on Japan
Ceramics designed by the artist Félix Bracquemond pioneered the use of motifs drawn from Japanese art in 19th-century French decorative arts. Larry Simms publishes here two extraordinary overlooked porcelain services by Bracquemond that add greatly to our understanding of his career.
Larry Simms, Monday, 25th August 2008
The Service figures et accessoires japonais is not the only overlooked contribution Bracquemond made to Japonisme in its initial years. He executed seven additional etchings whose motifs were again borrowed from or inspired by Japanese prints, including both flowers and birds from volumes i, ii and iv of Hokusai’s Manga.14 For example, the lily upon which one of the larger birds is perched in the Bracquemond etching shown in Figure 8 can be found in almost identical form in volume i, page 36, of Hokusai’s work.
Although not dated, these seven Bracquemond etchings were most likely executed between 1874 and 1875. In a letter to Bracquemond dated 12 June 1874, Charles Haviland wrote, ‘mon frère nous demande un décor franchement japonais… en jetés’.15 In other words, Charles’s brother Theodore, who ran the New York office, was asking for a decoration that was obviously Japanese and which was to be used as a scattered pattern. This is most likely a reference to these seven etchings since Haviland incorporates the same word jetés (thrown or scattered) in the title of the porcelain service made with these etchings.16
Each of the seven prints is titled in the etching plate Fleurs & oiseaux japonais, or some variation of this title.17 These etchings of flowers and birds are similar to those of the flowers, birds, and fish for the Service Rousseau, both in size and in their scattered arrangement.
The Service fleurs et oiseaux jetés, the name given by Haviland and Company to this décor,18 which, until now, has also escaped critical attention, has many characteristics in common with the Service figures et accessoires japonais. Here again, this can be most clearly seen by focusing on the table plates in this service.19 Braquemond again employs an asymmetrical arrangement, with one primary image, and one, two, or three supplementary images. Again, the images were first transfer printed and then hand painted. The two services have a similar range of colours and colour juxtapositions. Here again, the factory decorator was given some flexibility in the selection of the secondary images, and in the choice of colours of all these images. Comparing two luncheon plates from the service (Fig. 10), we see the same large motif of a perched bird, but each is coloured differently and is accompanied by different supplementary images.
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